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You’re working hard, powering up, leaning in—but what happens when you get pregnant?

Many women lose their jobs or end up in intolerable conditions without knowledge of their rights. Babygate is the first and only guide for parents navigating the workplace.

As joyous as pregnancy news can be, the truth is that the most pervasive form of sex discrimination in the workplace is against women who are mothers or are pregnant. And that’s why Babygate is the next step in the revolution around women and work.

Any mother-to-be who buys What to Expect When You’re Expecting should pick up a copy of Babygate to go with it. It offers indispensable advice to allow working parents to stay on the job and is a blueprint for change in the coming work–family revolution.

— Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University professor and author of Why Women Still Can’t Have It All

In this crucial book, Babygate authors Dina Bakst, Phoebe Taubman, and Elizabeth Gedmark break down the laws on topics across the parenthood spectrum in clear, conversational language, and include a state-by-state guide so readers know how they’re protected (or not) in their hometowns.

As attorneys for A Better Balance, the authors have long advocated for working families, drafting crucial legislation that has effected significant policy change across the country. Babygate empowers families to navigate the workplace during pregnancy and early parenthood. Best of all, it includes success stories that provide hope and a road map for making this country more family friendly.

Babygate is available for sale on Amazon and at the Feminist Press website.

More praise for the book

A Better Balance, one of the outstanding defenders of parents’ legal rights in the United States, has given us an indispensable guide with Babygate. No new parent should leave the hospital without it!

—Ann Crittenden, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of The Price of Motherhood

If you’re a working parent, you need Babygate—an invaluable and humane guide for expecting and new parents about their legal and economic rights in the American workplace. The information in its pages will provide answers to your most important questions and empower you to stand up for yourself and working families.

—Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation

This is a necessary resource for expectant parents — but it’s also a must-read for policymakers, and those Americans simply interested in learning whether their country walks the “family values” talk. The unfortunate answer is: often no.

—Joan Williams & Katherine Ullman, the Center for WorkLife Law, The Huffington Post

…I am so grateful that the nonprofit organization A Better Balance, which lobbies for better pregnancy protection and parental-leave laws, has published a book called Babygate… Until the government finances parental leave, the way it does in every other wealthy country, women need to know their rights so they can make informed decisions about their jobs.

—Jessica Grose, author, New York Times, Motherlode

The book [Babygate] is the thing that has been missing from parenting libraries, a guide to rights and provisions for pregnant women and new parents, and includes a comprehensive guide to individual state laws and regulation around everything from caregiver discrimination, paid leave policy, and breastfeeding laws. (Spoiler alert: if you’re expecting a child, move to California, not to Mississippi.)

—Rebecca Traister, author, The New Republic

Many expectant parents have a shelfful of books to guide them through pregnancy and child birth, but preparing for how an employer will handle the news of a pregnancy, and understanding how the law protects working moms and dads, is a consideration worth equal time.

That’s the case being made by three female attorneys who work for A Better Balance, a national legal advocacy group committed to protecting and advancing the interests of working families. The trio have written “Babygate,” a user-friendly manual covering every conceivable aspect of managing the realities of parenthood at work, from handling morning sickness, to figuring out maternity leave, to securing time and space to pump breast milk.

With real-life stories from working moms and dads, a state by state guide to the law, and even sample letters for employers, “Babygate” aims to educate and empower working parents so that they can benefit from the law’s protections and understand and prepare for its shortfalls.

—Maria Shriver, in an interview with Babygate co-author and ABB Co-President, Dina Bakst.

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