Maternity Leave Planning:

Neurosurgeons may need to plan for maternity leave and discuss coverage for their clinical responsibilities during their absence. It's important for healthcare professionals, including neurosurgeons, to communicate openly with their healthcare teams about their pregnancy and work collaboratively to ensure the well-being of both the medical professional and the patient.

Individuals who are both pregnant and involved in neurosurgical practice should receive personalized advice and guidance from their healthcare providers to address specific health and occupational considerations. Work and health considerations during pregnancy can vary, and decisions should be made in consultation with healthcare professionals who are familiar with the individual's unique circumstances.

Family and work have immensely changed and become intertwined over the past half century for both man and women. Additionally, alongside to traditional family structures prevalent, other forms of families such as single parents, LGBTQ + parents, and bonus families are becoming more common. Previous studies have shown that surgical trainees regularly leave residency when considering becoming a parent due to the negative stigma associated with pregnancy during training, dissatisfaction with parental leave options, inadequate lactation, and childcare support, and desire for greater mentorship on work-life integration. Indeed, parenthood is one of the factors contributing to attrition in surgical specialties, neurosurgery not being an exception.

The Diversity in Neurosurgery Committee (DC) of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) recognizes the challenges individuals face in parenthood with neurosurgery and wishes to address them in this white paper.

Vayssiere et al. will focus on the issues of family planning and neurosurgical practice during pregnancy in an itemized fashion based on an exhaustive literature search and will make recommendations to address the matters raised.

Potential solutions would be to further improve the work-family time ratio as well as improve working conditions in the hospital.

While many obstacles have been quoted in the literature about parenthood in medicine, and neurosurgery specifically, initiatives can and should be undertaken to ensure not only retention of colleagues but also to increase productivity and job satisfaction of those seeking to combine neurosurgery and family life, regardless of their sexual identity and orientation ¹⁾