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Call for parental leave changes to ease burden for mums of premmie babies
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Mothers of preterm babies have higher out-of-pocket health costs, spend longer out of the workforce and earn less money for up to five years.
Those are the findings of research published in the
Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health based on figures from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children and administrative data.
The research found mothers whose babies were born full term went back to work after an average of 1.9 years, while mothers of preterm babies delayed their return to work by almost a year longer, after adjusting for age, education attainment and marital status.