Supporting Maternity Leave

Following up on her post on how PIs, particularly new PIs, are affected when lab members go on leave, DrdrA wonders if NIH could support labs when a graduate student or postdoc is on maternity leave. "The only way, I think, to address this problem is with actual money," she blogs. "Perhaps a mechanism could be set up to allow NIH supported researchers to apply for supplements to their NIH grant to cover the salary of an employee that is out on leave for childbirth." DrdrA goes on to say that she is all in favor of more family-friendly policies, including paternity leave, but she is first fighting "for mothers not to be disadvantaged or discriminated against in their careers because they need to take some time off after giving birth."