Career Advice

Pregnant women are moving from job-to-job and job-to-home more often, as pregnancy and family leave gain acceptance in the workplace.

But the trend has a dark side: Many expectant mothers mislead employers about their pregnancies or plans for maternity leave, or at least avoid telling the truth. In most cases, that’s a bad strategy, with the potential to backfire.

Many of the young mothers I hear from are wrestling with confusion over when to tell prospective employers about pregnancy, and how much to disclose about maternity-leave plans. "What is the most ethical course of action," one young mother asked in a recent e-mail, when you’re pregnant, but not visibly so, and looking for a job?

Hiding pregnancy can foster mistrust. On a previous job at a telecommunications firm, senior sales executive Mary Alexander of Fairfax, Va., helped supervise a saleswoman who didn’t reveal when she was hired that she was pregnant. Managers were stunned a few weeks later when, with her department working flat-out, she announced she would need maternity leave. "I can’t believe she lied to me," one manager told Ms. Alexander.

While Ms. Alexander, a mother herself, could understand the saleswoman’s reticence, "my gut tells me there’s a point where you’ve crossed over the line and you need to say, ’I’m glad you like me, and I need to tell you’ " about a pregnancy. The saleswoman later quit during maternity leave, reinforcing the hard feelings.

It’s time for skilled women workers to be more honest. While the law doesn’t require a woman to disclose her pregnancy, it’s usually best to share the facts as soon as you are sure of them and to make a strong case for your ability to manage your pregnancy and maternity leave. Otherwise, surprising your bosses will undermine any hope of building trust.

There are still compelling reasons for unskilled women to keep mum. If you’re seeking a low-wage position in which workers are basically interchangeable, it’s probably best to keep quiet about pregnancy and prove yourself on the job.

By law, employers may not discriminate against a woman because of pregnancy or single out pregnancy as a factor in job interviews, unless it would interfere with her ability to perform job duties. But pregnancy discrimination is still rife. Pregnancy-bias complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have risen 10% in the past five years, to 4,649 in 2003.

There’s no question that disclosure poses a risk. Tanzenika Lee, Decatur, Ga., recently accepted a job as a server at a fast-food chain. But as soon as interviewers noticed she was five months pregnant, they withdrew the offer. When Ms. Lee asked why, she says, she was told the company couldn’t afford to hire pregnant workers.

If a prospective employer reacts that badly to pregnancy, you may not want to work there anyway. Attorney Andrea LaRue was in her second trimester of pregnancy when she applied for a counsel’s job on Capitol Hill. She revealed that fact in a second-round interview with the chief of staff, partly to gauge the response.

"If their reaction had been, ’Well, how much time do you want off?’ " she might not have taken the job, she says. Instead, her prospective boss responded warmly, congratulating her and assuring her she could fit right in. Ms. LaRue took the job and worked there happily for five years.

If disclosing your pregnancy during an interview feels too risky, wait until you have an offer in hand. This avoids inflicting negative surprises later on, says Cyndia Cameron of 9to5, National Association of Working Women, Milwaukee, an advocacy group. Some bosses may respond poorly -- and illegally -- by withdrawing their offer. But at least, "then you really know you lost it because of pregnancy," not because of some shortcoming.

The same principles should apply to disclosing maternity-leave plans. While 57% of working mothers return to work within three months of childbirth, a growing number are opting to stay home. Employment among mothers of children younger than one year of age has mostly fallen for the past five years to 53.7% in 2003 from 57.9% in 1998, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says.

Many women don’t know whether they will return, of course. But if you are certain you won’t, tell your bosses as soon as possible -- typically right after childbirth. If you feel entitled to disability pay or employer-paid health insurance, negotiate for it rather than misleading bosses into thinking you will return. You might offer to do some work for free, for example, in return for postponing your official quit date. If you fail to return from leave, you may have to repay those benefits, anyway: Federal family-leave law gives employers the option under some circumstances to recover benefits paid to employees who quit.

Building trust can pay off in employer support. Jackie Kolek was nervous about telling her bosses at Peppercom, New York, that she was pregnant and wanted to work part of the time from home after her maternity leave.

But her boss Ed Moed readily agreed to her request. "I was willing to talk with her about anything. I just wanted to make sure she was coming back," Mr. Moed says; he even named her a partner in the communications firm when she was six months pregnant. Her initial openness made it easy later to ask for a couple of extra weeks off when her child care didn’t work out; Mr. Moed granted it.

More women will face these questions in the coming months, if the job market heats up as many predict. How they handle this sensitive issue could do much to dispel mistrust around pregnancy in the workplace.