Assessing reasonable accommodations for pregnant employees

Federal law makes it illegal to discriminate against pregnant employees and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for a worker's known limitations related to pregnancy or childbirth under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA). Over the past few years, nearly all states also have enacted state-level protections, most patterned after the model Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act (PWFA). (The lone exception, North Carolina, has extended some protections to public employees through Executive Order.) Let’s take a look at what the PDA and the PWFA (using West Virginia’s version as an example, though the others are similar) mean for you when dealing with pregnant employees.

Discrimination against those affected by pregnancy or childbirth

It’s much more common today for women to work while pregnant than in years past. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, two-thirds of mothers expecting their first child between 2006 and 2008 worked during pregnancy, compared to 44% in the 1960s. Of those women who worked during pregnancy, 82% continued working until within one month of birth, compared to just one-third in the 1960s.