The U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world that does not have a national paid maternity leave policy [16]. Having access to paid leave has been associated with longer leaves among mothers after childbirth [17]. The main federal law governing leave in the U.S. is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993, which mandates unpaid leave of 12 weeks for perinatal care, childbirth, and caring for a newborn or an adopted child [18]. Thus, it is not surprising that U.S. national data on first time mothers show that 58.6 % returned to paid work in the first 3 months postpartum [19]. Economic theory on the household production function [20], predicts that women may choose the duration of leave from work after childbirth as an input to the production of their child’s health (in this case through taking time off to breastfeed) subject to constraints such as relatively low household income and employer paid/unpaid leave policies.