Re-joining office after giving birth to a baby takes a woman to whole new journey. Everything feels different around you at workplace. Your favourite colleague has a new buddy and certainly the project you were working really hard for is transferred to your teammate. The world doesn’t stop for you and your career takes a back-seat in the fast-paced environment.

This is what motherhood brings along for women in their professional spaces.

Here are 8 challenges new moms face at workplace that the rest of us will never understand:

1. Difficulty in maintaining work-life balance

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New moms often juggle between their professional and personal lives, eventually feels burned out. Your in-laws or even husband might be cool AF but the responsibility of the infant is primarily on you. Well, ‘coz you are a mother.

2. Compromising for projects that requires travel

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New moms often compromise for projects that require travelling and ultimately your boss assigns it to a co-worker who may or may not be best suited to crack the deal. A big opportunity gets lost.

3. Constant guilt trip of leaving new-born at home

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New moms at workplace find themselves dealing with guilt trips of staying away from their babies for too long. Thoughts like: ‘How could I? What if the baby needs me? I should quit. I am not a good mother’ come along with it.

4. No time for socialising with team

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New moms don’t get time to socialise with teammates during chai-sutta break or even at get-togethers. ‘Coz you just wish to finish up your work and head straight home to see your baby. No time to chill.

5. Asking for more offs after maternity leaves

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New moms often find it difficult to ask their bosses if they can apply for offs to take care of the infant. If a new mom manages to do so, she is asked to quit. Boss be like: ‘Didn’t you just take a long maternity break?

6. Searching affordable and quality child-care

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While some companies provide child’s day-care facility for their employees, many new moms struggle to find an affordable and quality centres for their infants at workplaces. They mostly end up keeping the baby with their in-laws or nannies at home.

7. Struggling to breastfeed their baby

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Breastfeeding in public is considered a taboo in our society. New mothers either do not get support from their bosses and colleagues about breastfeeding at workplace or they struggle due to non-availability of lactation facilities inside the premises.

8. Getting ignored by bosses for important assignments

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New moms are capable professionals but are rarely treated as such. Call it inherent sexism because that’s literally what it is!