But did you know that maternity leave in the UK is, for lack of a better word, abysmal? The UK has one of the poorest maternity leave plans in the developed world (34th, trailing slovenly behind countries with far lower GDPs ). Currently, the government will give mothers six weeks – so a month and a half – at 90% of what your salary would be. This then drops to either £148.68 a week or 90% of your weekly earnings, whichever is lower, for 33 weeks (about seven and a half months). For the remainder of the year – which you're totally entitled to take if you haven't resorted to feeding yourself cold baked beans from a can by then – there's nothing.