How to Support Your Coworker Before She Goes on Maternity Leave

Going on maternity leave can be like taking a trip to the DMV – it requires patience, planning and extra support. Preparing for a baby involves multiple parties. Expectant mothers need to work with their company to decide the duration of their leave, they need to work with their family to prepare the home and they even need to work with their doctors to ensure that they are taking care of themselves. Although childbirth can be a very exciting time, it can also be a source of stress and anxiety, especially if they are constantly thinking about their job.

According to The Bump, maternity leave can be so difficult for mothers because they are constantly worrying about what’s going on at work. What will happen after they leave? Is work going to pile up? Having all these worries isn’t helpful for mothers or their babies. So, as a coworker or a friend, what can you do?

1 Offer to shoulder some of the responsibility.

On Telegraph, they write, “For companies – especially really small companies – maternity leave presents challenges [because] suddenly, a key team member isn’t there.” In order to prevent this for happening, take the time to learn important aspects of your coworker’s job before she leaves. What are her daily responsibilities? Are there any programs you need to get yourself acquainted with? By planning ahead and learning these things little by little, it will help avoid an overload of information. Not only that, but it will also help soothe your coworker’s worries because she’ll know that she has adequately groomed someone to step-in while she’s gone.

2 Delegate the responsibilities.

Just because you’re chosen to take over your coworker’s job, that shouldn’t mean you have to do it alone. According to The Grindstone, many employees get overworked when trying to cover a coworker during maternity leave. They write, “This is not an issue of women not wanting to help other women in their careers. It is really the fact that these women are not being recognized for working harder.” Many of these people are left to do loads of extra work to support someone else, but they’re not getting support themselves. So, if you know that you won’t be able to handle all the tasks alone, reach out to your supervisor or other employers for help. For example, if all of your coworkers have 3 assignments to do each day, instead of doubling your assignments to 6, have three other people help you so you each have to do 4.

3 Keep your coworker informed.

Keeping your coworker regularly informed of any changes in the office will help soothe any worries she may have. Just because she’s on maternity leave, that doesn’t mean she has to be out of the loop. If there is new management in the office, then she will probably want to know about that. If there is a big project that the company is tackling, that is also good information to have. Keeping in contact with your coworker can help her avoid any shock when she comes back to work and can help her continue to feel like a part of the office.

4 Learn to bite your tongue.

If you can’t help complete your coworker’s assigned tasks, then you can at least be encouraging. Your coworker has enough to worry about – she doesn’t need to feel bad about leaving too. Don’t complain about the extra work and avoid calling her maternity leave a “vacation.” According to Time, you should instead “think of family leave not as a vacation, but as a job swap. The new parents are swapping the jobs they know for shift work in an excrement-making factory with a co-worker who cannot communicate except by weeping or kicking.” Motherhood is an around-the-clock job. New mothers need to learn to handle restless babies, sleepless nights and high-stress situations. So, instead of making side remarks about the “joys of motherhood and maternity leave,” try something more supportive: encouraging words, a thoughtful card or even a source of advice and support.

Your coworker needs your help to get through her maternity leave. You can offer support in a variety of ways. It can be as simple as reassuring her that she’s going to be a great mom or you can even take on the even bigger responsibility of being her interim replacement. During her maternity leave, she will need all of her energy to focus on her child and her new job requirement as a mother. She needs a friend.