Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: what employers need to know

Executive overview

Employers must now provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant, postpartum, and pregnancy-related medical conditions — or demonstrate undue hardship. The law applies to organisations with 15+ employees, catching many who assumed they were exempt under FMLA.

Treating pregnancy with the same operational grace as any disability accommodation is now a legal baseline, not a courtesy.

What the law requires

• Prohibits discrimination in granting reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions
• Mirrors the ADA framework for disability accommodations
• Applies to employers with 15+ employees (not 50+ like FMLA)
• Examples of reasonable accommodations: seating, close parking, lifting limits, water at workstation

Supporting pregnant and postpartum workers

• FMLA provides up to 12 weeks unpaid leave — many parents return early due to lack of pay
• Paid family leave averages ~8 weeks for mothers, ~4 weeks for fathers among employers who offer it
• The US has no federal mandated paid parental leave; offering it aids retention
• When an employee discloses pregnancy: receive it with grace, ask only work-relevant questions
• Do not assume pregnancy will affect job performance
• Maternity leave is medical recovery — not vacation; set that expectation with the whole team