Amber Scorah, who lives in New York, was forced to return to work just 3 months after giving birth due to lack of parental leave policies in the US.
This means that employers are not forced to give mothers substantial maternity leave when they become parents.
Ms Scorah returned to work and put her baby son Karl in the care of a daycare centre in Manhattan.
Tragically, she returned to pick him up that evening to find workers attempting to resuscitate him.
Baby Karl sadly passed away and his cause of death has not yet been confirmed, but Ms Scorah has been left devastated.
Writing for the New York Times, she said: "Why, why does a parent in this country have to sacrifice her job, her ability to provide her child with proper health care — or for many worse off than me, enough food to eat — to buy just a few more months to nurture a child past the point of vulnerability?
“A mother should never have no choice but to leave her infant with a stranger at 3 months old if that decision doesn't feel right to her. Or at 6 weeks old. Or 3 weeks old. I would have stayed home with Karl longer, but there just didn't seem to be a way,"
She continued: "Mothers could go back to work after taking time off to recover physically from birth and bond with their young children. Health care could be available to bridge that return to work so that our children could get their wellness checkups and vaccinations.
"Yes, it's possible that even in a different system, Karl still might not have lived a day longer, but had he had been with me, where I wanted him, I wouldn't be sitting here, living with the nearly incapacitating anguish of a question that has no answer.”
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