russia, they get 52 weeks or more of paid maternity leave and in chile, they gut up to a year and in brazil at least 14 weeks of leave is paid for by the government. and in fact there are only seven nations in the world with no national paid maternity leave. apart from the united states, no other industrialized nations leave new moms out in the cold. well i'm one the faortunate one. but also the time to recover as a new mom from a transformative and very challenging experience of child birth and sleepless nights. after my second child, i developed severe postpartum anxiety. my paid leave through work gave me the time to seek the treatment i needed and to recover mentally before going back to my demanding job. i honestly could not imagine having to deal with the stress of not having paid leave on top