Friend’s daughter is in the NJ/Army National Guard. She gave birth last Friday (7/28) & expected to report for drills this weekend, a mere 8 days after giving birth!
Is there no such thing as maternity leave in the military??? If she had a C-section, she’d still have the stitches in.
Ye and no … the active duty new mom has to go to sick call and get a sick in quarters chit from the doc allowing her to remain home and do call in roll call for however the doc feels she needs to be healing, then she can go on light duty until her pelvic ligaments have gone back to the pre-pregnancy state. If she had a c-section, then she obviously has the SIQ time to heal up, but she is never ever going to get the multi month hang out at home ‘bonding’ deal. She will have the time to heal up, and anything further comes out of her regulation 30 day leave allotment.
She should call her chain of command. Not being located at a base normal sick call isn’t really part of the system.
In my two company commands in the Guard my First Sergeant handled decisions about excusing or rescheduling time for enlisted members. I handled appeals of his answer and my officers. Doctor’s notes were sometimes required. I left that to my subordinates on a case by case basis. Since they are probably well aware of her pregnancy proof is probably less of an issue.
Her individual unit policy may vary on who has the authority. Working the chain of command applies regardless.
This answer is horribly wrong.
Active Duty Army women are entitled to 12 continuous weeks of non-chargeable maternity leave immediately following her release from the maternity ward. No call-in reporting is required.
Reserve Component soldiers on reserve status are not entitled to maternity leave, but are excused from any weekend drills and/or annual training for a period of 84 days following the birth. Commanders may NOT disapprove maternity leave per Army Regulation 600-8-10 and Army Directive 2016-09.
She needs to explain this to whomever is telling her to report. If that person does not budge, she needs to call that person’s commander, etc.
Given that the woman is in the Guard, not the actives, there *may *be other issues involved here that are getting garbled between the servicemember and the civilian OP.
Perhaps the rest of the story is that she won’t get paid if she doesn’t drill. So she wants the money and says “I have to drill this weekend” even though it’s 100% voluntary at the margin.
Or *perhaps *she has a quota of drill days per year, and is behind already, and won’t make annual quota unless she makes every opportunity remaining in 2017.
As said just above by the more-current experts, my bet is the woman doesn’t actually know how the system works and has been too timid to ask. So she’s assuming she’s gotta show up when that’s simply not the case. What she does need to do in this circumstance is contact her supervisor to learn the actual details and get whatever is the correct treatment under the regs.
We were always just told that we weren’t issued a wife or children in our seabags. Times have changed, it seems.
Thanks, Bear_Nenno. Specific Reg & Directive numbers; I love the Dope.
Let me fix that for you: between the servicemember, her mom, and the civilian OP.
One more person in the chain & you know how the grapevine works.
My friend talked to another daughter/baby’s aunt; something about it will “mess up her retirement” if she doesn’t go in, so I think the truth may be closer to this.
UPDATE: She is now officially excused from drills tomorrow.
I don’t know any other details but non-Dopers thank you Bear_Nenno!
Great to hear. And tell her not to worry about accumulating her retirement points. One unplanned hurricane, civil unrest or natural disaster will clear that right up.
Thanks god someone answered correctly.
But, I find it very very very odd that the female in question did not breach this subject with her chain of command. It’s not like it doesn’t take nine months to have a baby. And, the chain of command would have noticed her being pregnant for sure during the last trimester no doubt.
My guess is that the OP heard a conversation and not being military took everything way out of context.
Glad bear_Nenno jumped in because my retirement makes me less willing to dig into specific regs and I was about to hop into bed last night. My company command time was all in an environment where it was physically impossible for any of my Soldiers to give birth so I had no direct experience to draw on. I had one of my Soldiers get burned on a good year when he transferred out despite only missing one drill though so the worry isn’t something to entirely discount.
The retirement piece is complicated and individual. There’s some differences in implementing guidance that fleshes out regulation between National Guard and Reserve both at the NGB and State level too. It was my bane finishing in the Reserves. My asking my S1/CSM to fill in the details during my last command was their bane. 
Some big picture data that she’ll need to get into the weeds on because we don’t have the data to do anything else here:
It’s not hard to have a good year. 9 two day weekends plus membership is a year of 51 points. Since the training calendar for the fiscal year isn’t tied to her retirement year, it is important to look at the issue. That 84 days could be as much as 4 months worth of drill missed and AT schedules can sometimes leave a given retirement year without those 14 points. That opens the door for a bad year.
OP’s friend’s daughter will still have to make up any drill days missed to ensure she has a good year for retirement.
In my Air Force Reserve squadron, it was borderline-stupid easy to reschedule a drill weekend (which the Air Force oddly insists on calling a UTA - Unit Training Assembly). That was a flying squadron, however, with the need to accommodate crewmember’s civilian work schedules AND still fly training & occasional operational global mobility missions during the regular work week. I would imagine things are a little different in a ground-side Guard/Reserve unit that doesn’t have a 24/7 mission availability requirement, however.
Even in the Marine Corps Reserve (again, a flying squadron, but with much less mid-week flying mission), it wasn’t terribly difficult to reschedule a drill weekend or two. More often than that in the same FY, however, would get you some face time with your OIC to provide an explanation as to why you were unable to comply with the published-the-previous-fiscal-year drill/AT schedule. I would assume that a pregnancy would make that a quick & easy conversation, but I didn’t encounter that situation during my brief time as a Traditional Reservist in the Marines.