Pregnancy Accommodations: US

This Pregnancy Accommodations policy helps your organization comply with federal protections for employees affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, including the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA). It sets clear expectations for requesting support, participating in a timely, good-faith interactive process, and avoiding discrimination or retaliation, while giving HR and managers practical guidance on common accommodations like breaks, schedule adjustments, and temporary duty changes.

The History Behind Pregnancy Accommodations Policies in the US

Pregnancy accommodations grew out of the broader push for Workplace Accommodations after decades of employers treating pregnancy as a reason to sideline workers. Congress addressed the most obvious version of that problem in 1978 with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), which amended Title VII and required employers to treat pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions the same as other temporary medical conditions. Courts then spent years wrestling with what "the same" meant in practice, especially when employers offered light duty or other adjustments to some workers but not to pregnant employees.

The Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Young v. United Parcel Service put that tension on the map for a lot of HR teams. The Court rejected an automatic rule that the PDA always required accommodations, but it also rejected the idea that employers could deny accommodations to pregnant workers while routinely giving them to others with similar work limits. That case pushed employers to look harder at their light-duty programs, their "100% healed" expectations, and the way managers made one-off decisions that looked consistent internally but fell apart under legal scrutiny.

Congress then made the accommodation expectation explicit with the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), effective June 27, 2023. The PWFA requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations for known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would cause undue hardship, and it uses the familiar interactive process model from disability accommodation practice. State and local laws had already been moving in this direction for years, so many multi-state employers started treating pregnancy accommodations as a default baseline instead of a location-by-location exception.

Which Law is this Pregnancy Accommodations Policy Meant to Comply With?

If you create and distribute a Pregnancy Accommodations Policy for your US-based employees, it's in an effort to comply with the US's Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA), which complement accommodations requirements from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

How to Write a US-Specific Pregnancy Accommodations Policy

• Start with "why" and introduce the concept, your organization supports employees affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions through reasonable accommodations.
• Define the scope of covered pregnancy-related conditions, including physical and mental health conditions connected to pregnancy and reproductive health.
• Describe the types of reasonable accommodations your organization may provide, with a few illustrative examples.
• Explain how employees request an accommodation and that your organization will use an interactive process to identify workable options.
• State that accommodations can be temporary or ongoing based on the employee's needs and role.
• Note that your organization may request healthcare documentation when needed to evaluate an accommodation request.
• Prohibit discrimination and retaliation related to requesting, using, or participating in the accommodation process.
• Address how your organization will handle overlapping federal, state, and local requirements by applying the standard that provides the greatest benefit to employees.

When to Include this Policy in Your Employee Handbook

If you have employees in US and you don't have a similar policy that's available for all US employees, you should include this policy in your employee handbook for US-based employees. 

The PWFA resulted in an updated EEOC "Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal" poster. You should be posting this poster once you hit 15 employees due to Title VII and ADA requirements. Your employee handbook is a great place to post information in addition to any official posters.

Other Considerations

The law applies to US employers who have at least 15 employees working in the US.

Exceptions

None.