If you’ve planned to have a baby and start a family in France, the country offers you plenty of advantages and benefits once you become a parent. Sometimes, however, discovering that you’re pregnant does not fit your plans, in which case there also are solutions available.
Discovering the pregnancy and deciding what to do
Where can I find pregnancy tests ?
Pregnancy tests are available in pharmacies or in dispensers outside of pharmacies.
Emergency contraceptive pill
You can get Plan B without a prescription, the cost is around €5 or less but not every pill are available that way. You can ask your gynaecologist or doctor to prescribe you one to keep at home for emergencies, then it is free. If they don’t offer, ask, they will oblige.
Where can I get an abortion in France ?
Abortion is legal in France until the 12th week of the pregnancy, so until three months after the last day of the last menstruation. Women who make this choice for themselves are accompanied through the process by a doctor and/or a psychologist.
If you or your partner have decided to terminate a pregnancy, get in touch with your doctor and/or your gynaecologist or a midwife (sage-femme) at least two weeks before you want the procedure to take place. The type of procedure will be decided by the doctor, as will whether you need to go to a hospital or not.
Planning a birth
Getting in touch with a doctor
If you or your partner choose to give birth, you need to consult with a doctor within the first 3 months to confirm that no health problems are occurring and that there are no risks for the mother or the foetus. You discuss this with a general practitioner, gynaecologist or midwife, however we recommend to see a GP first, your médecin traitant, who will refer you to a specialist.
There are seven mandatory doctor’s visits during the pregnancy, all of them are fully covered by social security.
Filling a pregnancy declaration
Before the birth, you have to fill a déclaration de grossesse (pregnancy declaration). This document can be filled online directly by your doctor, meaning you won’t have to do anything yourself. If you forget, your doctor will remind you of it.
Why is it important to fill out this document? Because this triggers the covering of all of your medical costs by Social Security.
Getting your family book
The family book records every action taken during the pregnancy regarding the health and wellbeing of the foetus. It also allows for an administrative follow up to ensure everyone is working with the same knowledge. The family book is sent to you automatically after your first visit with a doctor.
Choosing where you want to give birth
Most of the births in France take place in a public hospital. To make this happen, you have two choices.
- You anticipate and get in touch with the hospital to ensure they have availability around your due date. This is also what your doctor will advise you to do. Bear in mind that this is not equivalent to booking a room, it’s just a notification to doctors and nurses in the hospital that you may come and give birth around that time.
- You go to the closest hospital when you go into labour. There is a risk that the hospital is overcrowded and unable to welcome you. (little anecdote : that’s what happened to my mom when I was born. I was supposed to come to the world in a hospital in the north of Paris, but the hospital couldn’t accommodate my parents. They had to go to the centre of Paris).
You also have alternative options.
- Give birth at home with a midwife. To do this, you would need to get in touch with a private sector nurse that specialises in home birth. Also remember that giving birth at home may require you to buy certain material that can be quite expensive.
- Give birth in a private hospital. For this, you need to book your room ahead of time for the number of days you plan to stay.
TIP : private hospitals in France don’t provide better healthcare than public hospitals. The care level is the same, sometimes it’s better in the public hospitals. The main difference is that you’ll have a more comfortable room in the private sector.
Announcing the news to your employer
Having a baby is always a joyful news to announce to your family and loved ones. At work, however, it may be a bit trickier to announce. I’m not going to break out an unexpected truth here but there is no special moment to notify your boss that you will be going on maternity or paternity leave. The only advice is to remain professional.
I highly recommend you book a meeting with your boss/manager and share your news in person, not via email or during a zoom meeting.
Bear in mind that being pregnant and planning maternity/paternity leave both must be announced in writing to your manager and your HR department. Usually, HR will provide you with some guidelines regarding maternity/paternity leave etc. If they don’t, you’ve got Urban Index for more information!
One last thing, sometimes you can be scared to announce that you’re pregnant. You may be concerned if your employer will consider you differently or be worried that it may hurt your career. Let’s not kid ourselves here, in France, as in any other country, pregnancy will impact your career as a woman, promotion-wise or salary-wise.
I may totally be wrong there (being a man, I never have or will ever give birth), but based on what I have heard from colleagues and friends, when you anticipate the leave and help find solutions for your absence and help the replacement, you can really get on top of it easily.
I advise you to not make any last-minute announcements and to give your company enough time to prepare for your absence.
Is it free to give birth in France ?
Yes, your insurance covers your hospital stay for 12 days IF you give birth in a public hospital. Otherwise, if you choose a liberal midwife or a private clinic you’ve got to pay for the room, the professional, etc…
After the birth
How do I get maternity leave in France ?
Maternity leave in France offers a maximum of 16 weeks for a mother’s birth of her first child. Broken down into 6 weeks before the birth, and 10 weeks following the birth. This is the maximum you can take. It’s your choice to take less. For a third child, the maternity leave is extended to 26 weeks.
For the father, paternity leave has been extended recently (in 2022) to 4 weeks.
In order to qualify for maternity leave, you must :
- Have had access to social security for at least 10 months before the date of the birth
- Take at least 8 weeks maternity leave
- Have worked at least 150 hours in the 90 days preceding the maternity leave.
Check thoroughly with your GP, your health insurance and your employer that you tick all the boxes.
In case of an adoption, the conditions are the same but only for one parent. For surrogacy, the law is still unclear at the time of writing.
How do I register my child with the French authorities ?
This is done in two steps :
1. Registering the child
This is usually done by the father or the partner of the mother, it can also be done by someone present during the birth, like a nurse.
The registration is carried out at the townhall of your city or arrondissement in Paris, Lyon or Marseille, or any Mairie in any other town. Once you’re there, you need to go to the “bureau d’état civil”, the personal record office. Sometimes, a clerk from city hall can come directly into your hospital room.
You can also register the baby online, directly on your ameli.fr account.
The documents needed are :
- A certificate written by the doctor or nurse who performed the birth
- A declaration of the choice of the name (in France, by law, a child takes the name of its father. If you want the child to take the name of the other parent or of both parents, you need to fill this form)
- The certificate of recognition, if you didn’t do this before the birth, please see below
- A recent proof of address (no older than 3 months)
- ID of the parent(s)
- The family book (livret de famille), if you have one (otherwise, the authorities will give you one or send you one when you register the birth)
After the registration, the clerk will give you the birth certificate of the child which you must keep, because you’ll need it later.
2. Recognition of the child
As a father, you need to officially acknowledge the child if you’re not married to the child’s mother. The acknowledgement from the mother is automatically implied.
This can be done at three different points.
- Before the birth, in your city hall, at the bureau d’état civil. You’ll need proof of ID and proof of address. If you proceed to acknowledge the child before the birth, you’ll be required to bring the certificate of acknowledgement when you declare the child.
- During the child registration
- After the child registration, at any moment, whatever the age of the child.
If my child is born in France, is he/she French ?
You may have heard that a child born in France is automatically French? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Your child will be French if one of the parent is French.
If both parents are not French, your child can ask to become French :
- Between ages 13 and 16, if the child is born in France, and has been living in France since age 8.
- From age 16, if the child is born in France has been living in France 5 years, continuously or not, from age 11
- From age 18, if the child has been living in France for 5 years, since age 11.
What are the impacts of the birth of a child ?
I’m not going to explain here that your life will dramatically change when you have a baby, that you need to change your living habits etc. Nope, this will be about the administrative change that you need to make.
Impôts / taxes
You need to declare the birth of the child, it will lower your taxes.
- You just go your impôts account
- Click on “Gérer mon prélèvement à la source”
- Then on “Signaler un changement de situation”
Social security
You’ll need to declare the child in order for it to be covered by social security.
- You go on your ameli.fr account
- Click on “Mes démarches”
- And then on “Déclaration du nouveau-né”
You may need to do the same with the CAF and your mutuelle (private social security).