Maternity Rights and Mothers' Return to Work

In this paper we use the ALSPAC cohort of 12,000 births to examine the effect of maternity rights on mothers' post-birth return to employment decisions. We aim to disentangle the effects of the terms of maternity rights entitlements from the effects of other factors (such as household wealth, personal preferences and labour market opportunities) that influence the timing of a mother's return to work. We adopt a discrete hazard model with instrumental variables to estimate a counterfactual of what mothers with rights would have done in the absence of this legislation. Mothers with rights have an underlying (but unobserved) stronger attachment to the labour market which prompts earlier return than on average. Nevertheless, even when we take this into account we find a substantial impact of maternity rights on behaviour. Having rights induces around 20 per cent more women to return to their previous job before 7 months than would otherwise be the case. Women from lower skilled groups return disproportionately at the date at which maternity pay expires, while managerial and professional women tend to return at the expiry of unpaid leave.government policy, welfare, child care, labor supply

Common polymorphism in H19 associated with birthweight and cord blood IGF-II levels in humans

Background: Common genetic variation at genes that are imprinted and exclusively maternally expressed could explain the apparent maternal-specific inheritance of low birthweight reported in large family pedigrees. We identified ten single nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs) in H19, and we genotyped three of these SNPs in families from the contemporary ALSPAC UK birth cohort ( 1,696 children, 822 mothers and 661 fathers) in order to explore associations with size at birth and cord blood IGF- II levels. Results: Both offspring's and mother's H19 2992C> T SNP genotypes showed associations with offspring birthweight ( P = 0.03 to P = 0.003) and mother's genotype was also associated with cord blood IGF-II levels ( P = 0.0003 to P = 0.0001). The offspring genotype association with birthweight was independent of mother's genotype ( P = 0.01 to P = 0.007). However, mother's untransmitted H19 2992T allele was also associated with larger birthweight ( P = 0.04) and higher cord blood IGF-II levels ( P = 0.002), suggesting a direct effect of mother's genotype on placental IGF-II expression and fetal growth. The association between mother's untransmitted allele and cord blood IGF-II levels was more apparent in offspring of first pregnancies than subsequent pregnancies ( P-interaction = 0.03). Study of the independent Cambridge birth cohort with available DNA in mothers (N = 646) provided additional support for mother's H19 2992 genotype associations with birthweight ( P = 0.04) and with mother's glucose levels ( P = 0.01) in first pregnancies. Conclusion: The common H19 2992T allele, in the mother or offspring or both, may confer reduced fetal growth restraint, as indicated by associations with larger offspring birth size, higher cord blood IGF-II levels, and lower compensatory early postnatal catch-up weight gain, that are more evident among mother's smaller first-born infants

Common polymorphism in H19 associated with birthweight and cord blood IGF-II levels in humans.

BACKGROUND: Common genetic variation at genes that are imprinted and exclusively maternally expressed could explain the apparent maternal-specific inheritance of low birthweight reported in large family pedigrees. We identified ten single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in H19, and we genotyped three of these SNPs in families from the contemporary ALSPAC UK birth cohort (1,696 children, 822 mothers and 661 fathers) in order to explore associations with size at birth and cord blood IGF-II levels. RESULTS: Both offspring's and mother's H19 2992C>T SNP genotypes showed associations with offspring birthweight (P = 0.03 to P = 0.003) and mother's genotype was also associated with cord blood IGF-II levels (P = 0.0003 to P = 0.0001). The offspring genotype association with birthweight was independent of mother's genotype (P = 0.01 to P = 0.007). However, mother's untransmitted H19 2992T allele was also associated with larger birthweight (P = 0.04) and higher cord blood IGF-II levels (P = 0.002), suggesting a direct effect of mother's genotype on placental IGF-II expression and fetal growth. The association between mother's untransmitted allele and cord blood IGF-II levels was more apparent in offspring of first pregnancies than subsequent pregnancies (P-interaction = 0.03). Study of the independent Cambridge birth cohort with available DNA in mothers (N = 646) provided additional support for mother's H19 2992 genotype associations with birthweight (P = 0.04) and with mother's glucose levels (P = 0.01) in first pregnancies. CONCLUSION: The common H19 2992T allele, in the mother or offspring or both, may confer reduced fetal growth restraint, as indicated by associations with larger offspring birth size, higher cord blood IGF-II levels, and lower compensatory early postnatal catch-up weight gain, that are more evident among mother's smaller first-born infants.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are