Additional maternity leave for parents of premature babies from 19 March 2025

On 19 March 2025, provisions amending the Labour Code on maternity leave will come into force. They extend leave for parents of premature babies who have to be hospitalised after birth. In Poland, this issue affects around 20,000 children a year, and the new benefit is designed to help parents get through this difficult time and mitigate the effects of fighting for their child’s health and life. 

Who is entitled to additional leave?

The right to extended maternity leave will be granted to parents of a child who was born before the end of the 28th week of pregnancy or who weighed less than 1000 g on the day of birth. The leave will be granted for a maximum of 15 weeks.

A similar rule will apply if a child is born before the end of the 36th week of pregnancy with a birth weight of more than 1000 g, but requires hospitalization. In this case, the additional leave cannot exceed 8 weeks.

The same 8-week leave is available to parents of a child who was born after the 37th week of pregnancy, but requires hospitalization 5 days after the birth. In this case, the condition is that the child’s hospitalization lasts at least two consecutive days from the 5th to the 28th day after birth.

The additional leave can be used by both mother or father, as well as the child’s legal guardian, foster parent or adoptive parent.

Determining the amount of leave

A one-week supplementary maternity leave will be granted for each week of the child’s stay in hospital.

According to the new regulations, in order to determine the amount of supplementary maternity leave, it will be necessary to add up the periods of the child’s stay in hospital until the end of the 8th week or until the end of the 15th week after the birth (if a child was in hospital for part of the week, it will be rounded up to a full week).

Additional maternity leave and the amount of the allowance

During additional maternity leave, the maternity allowance is 100% of its base rate.

You can read more about the new leave and what obligations the employer has towards the employee in the article by the Advartis Group company Contract Administration which offers comprehensive HR and payroll outsourcing services.