The pregnant employee in your company: covered, or hoping for the best?
By Mediplus Companhia de Seguros S.A.
If your company does not have adequate maternity cover, she may be forced to make a decision she should never have to make: pay for antenatal appointments out of her own pocket, or postpone them until there is enough “time” or “money”.
In Mozambique, this is not the exception. It is the norm. Only 18.6% of women receive the full range of recommended maternal healthcare services, including regular check-ups, delivery assisted by a qualified healthcare professional, and postnatal follow-up care.
You may think this is a public health issue, far removed from your company. It is not.
In Mozambique, 24 out of every 1,000 children die within the first 28 days of life. A significant proportion of these deaths is linked to gaps in antenatal care and access to skilled birth attendance, precisely the services that comprehensive maternity cover helps to secure.
The data is also clear about who is most affected. Women living in urban areas have significantly greater access to maternal healthcare than those in rural areas, and income levels continue to determine who receives comprehensive care.
Translated into your company’s reality, this means that if the health plan you offer does not adequately cover maternity care, you are effectively allowing these same inequalities to exist within your organisation.
Consider the real cost. An employee who postpones medical appointments because she lacks adequate cover is more likely to face complications during delivery, experience a longer recovery period, and return to work later and less able to perform at her best, if she returns at all. The resulting absenteeism is unlikely to be recorded as a “benefits gap”. Instead, it appears as “lost productivity”, “staff turnover”, or “unexpected costs”. The underlying cause, however, remains the same.
The good news is that this issue has a straightforward solution. It does not require a complete redesign of your employee benefits programme. It simply requires you to examine one thing: what your health plan actually covers when it comes to maternity care.
The way a company supports employees during pregnancy, childbirth, and the first months of a child’s life is one of the clearest reflections of its culture.
It says more about an organisation than any set of values displayed on a wall.
This is not about generosity. It is about the type of employer you want to be known as.
Mediplus partners with companies across Mozambique to ensure that maternity cover is a fundamental part of their corporate health plans, rather than an optional extra negotiated separately.
Request a corporate quote and review the maternity benefits your company provides today.
Health first. #saúdeprimeiro
Sources: UNICEF Mozambique (2024); “Inequalities and Factors Associated with Maternal Healthcare Services Utilisation in Mozambique”, BMJ Global Health (2025).
#mediplus #maternalhealth #employeebenefits #HR #responsibleleadership
