Working mothers and early childhood outcomes: lessons from the Canadian National Longitudinal Study on Children and Youth.

Full Abstract

BACKGROUND: More mothers are choosing to return to work during the first 2 years of their child's life with an uncertain impact on early developmental outcomes. AIMS: To determine the association between duration of maternity leave and motor and social development of toddlers. STUDY DESIGN: Population-based, retrospective cohort study. SUBJECTS: The Canadian National Longitudinal Survey on Children and Youth (NLSCY) Cycle 3 provides data on the characteristics and life experience of Canadian children. For sampled households, the person most knowledgeable about the child completed a survey on demographics, parent characteristics and family environment. The analysis was limited to 6664 families with children up to 2 years. OUTCOME MEASURES: Logistic regression was used to assess the association between duration of maternity leave and impaired performance (<-1 SD below the mean) on the Motor and Social Development (MSD) scale adjusted for multiple covariates including maternal age, gender, breastfeeding and socioeconomic status. RESULTS: One month of maternity leave increased the odds of impaired performance on the MSD by 3% (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.02, 1.04). This was also seen with categorized maternity leave duration. Being male (OR 1.53, 95% CI 1.35, 1.74) and having a younger mother (OR 1.48, 95% CI 0.98, 2.23) increased the risk of impaired performance on the MSD while being of higher SES reduced the risk (OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.93, 1.00). CONCLUSIONS: There is an association between duration of maternity leave and impaired performance in motor and social development in children up to 2 years.

Author information

Author/s: Sherlock, R L (RL); Synnes, A R (AR); Koehoorn, M (M);

Affiliation: Division of Neonatology, Children's and Women's Health Centre of British Columbia, 4480 Oak Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada. rsherlock(-atsign-)cw.bc.ca

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Early human development (Early Hum Dev), published in Ireland. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Apr; vol 84 (issue 4) : pp 237-42

Dates: Created 2008/04/14; Completed 2008/06/24;

PMID: 17662542, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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