My unit will be deploying about 2 months before I give birth to my son. I am trying to find out how SOON after giving birth I will be able to deploy and join them. I have been searching for some Army Regulation to help me out here, but alas, have found nothing. HELP...anyone? (Please include an AR # that I can reference.)
2006-09-24 14:41:41 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Military
A 6 week Post Partum Profile will be issued at the time of birth and the soldier would need to be cleared by attending physician.
2006-09-24 15:57:51 · answer #1 · answered by taxidj88 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Yes 8 weeks maternity leave - but that doesn't equal deployment.
Deployment ready is not going to be a firm number answer fromany AR. It will depend on your medical condition as rated by Army medical doctors after birth plus a pile of checkboxes.
They will not be able to determine when until after you have the baby. But you can ask your Army doctor what guidelines he has to follow and what he expects the outcome to be. He will most likely talk about physical and psychological medical checkboxes and normal birthing time frames to meet those conditions.
The gung-ho attitude sounds more like active duty. If you are Guard or Reserve you may want to contact Army medical and get in the system. I suspect if you are not seeing one yet they may be expecting you to opt out or wait a liberal amount of time.
I suspect you will find it still a bit of an uphill battle to go before they call. You can call personnel and ask what the normal post-birth deployment time is -- but I think CNN said it is 6 months plus.
That said physical conditioning is key. Work hard as soon as cleared after the birth. Do consult your doctor about which exercise you can do without setting yourself back. However, you have some time to do this. They won't approve anyone to ship who is not yet past danger of spontaneous bleeding, etc. I am guessing it will probably be 2-3 weeks minimum to let all your internal parts to heal past any possibly of that for a normal appearing birth. A Casaerian would probably help control this aspect a lot. Again that physical readiness aspect is a medical determination.
You also need to prove guardianship and care of your child is legally resolved while you are gone and also should you not make it back. You can arrange much of this now. See a lawyer or even the unit's government counsel then Army admin ASAP. However, things may change depending on if there are abnormalities and the severity of circumstances. Again see a lawyer about state laws and financial arrangements. You probably won't be able to finalize this for Army administrative and overseas deployment purposes until after birth. But you can line up your ducks for a quick one time visit post partum.
Finally your the US Army medical staff will likely have to determine your mental soundness and suitability post-partum for deployment. Did you get attached to your baby, etc. You may want to ask your doctor if it will help to start interviewing for that now. That is if he expects the decision needs to be approved by a psychology specialist due to your desire for an accelerated deployment timeframe. It may speed things along if whichever doctor knows you before the birth (versus post-partum hormones). Or your doctor may make the decide directly.
Bottomline: contact Army medical.
Minor details:
Vaccinations will also be an issue since you can't have them before birth nor if you decided to nurse. While not critical medical does like people to have a couple weeks before deployment when possible for the extremely incubation problems to show up. If you can convince them to give the vaccinations about a week after birth you should be in good shape timewise.
Finally once you get cleared, you will need to wait on orders, equipment issue, travel and other normal administrative issues. I'd say two weeks extra but you could get lucky if you know people in admin and hop the right military flights on standby.
2006-09-24 22:43:19 · answer #2 · answered by mortree 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
2 months before you give birth to your son? Well, considering that you'll have to be out of work for 1 month to get back into shape and stuff. You will already be away from work for three months if not longer. Why don't you just stay home and take care of your baby? It's the best thing to do. The first year of life, your child will NEED you. If you leave him then, it will seem to home like you are abandoning him. You'll MISS EVERYTHING!!!
2006-09-24 22:08:53 · answer #3 · answered by Proud Army Wife 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The Army will give you 8 weeks maternity leave. That's when you can join your unit.
2006-09-24 22:05:30 · answer #4 · answered by mindrizzle 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Call an Army office.
2006-09-24 21:50:28 · answer #5 · answered by pink9364 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
maybe you should worry about bonding with your son ....there will be other deployements dont worry. Focus on being with your son in those formative moments and getting yourself back into adequate shape so you dont get hurt.
2006-09-24 22:00:47 · answer #6 · answered by knufflebunny 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋