“The real gap isn’t policy”

Astrid, LEIA Health, on what companies get wrong about parental leave

When Astrid started thinking about having a family, she moved from London back to Stockholm. Not because she didn't love living in London – but the UK system made it clear how risky parenthood could be for a career.

"Parental leave in the UK felt fragile," she says. "Rights tied to tenure, limited support for partners, huge variation depending on your employer, and a quiet expectation that serious careers shouldn't pause."

She assumed Sweden would be different. And in many ways it is. But even with strong legislation, parents still hesitate to take leave, fear career penalties, and experience wildly different support depending on their manager.

“The real gap isn’t policy,” Astrid says. “It’s how parental leave is activated inside companies.”

That observation became LEIA. Founded by Astrid and Sandra, it started as a postpartum health app, built to support mothers during one of the most critical and invisible health transitions of their lives.

Along the way, while building, they noticed that the biggest gaps weren’t just medical or emotional, they were structural. So LEIA evolved from being postpartum support to building the infrastructure for parents in the workforce.

In March, Astrid came by our office to walk us through The LEIA Report 2025. The first large-scale study of how parental leave is actually managed in Swedish organisations, and what it costs when it isn't.

The headline finding: 1 in 4 parents leave their job after parental leave. For women, it's 38%. Most of them never said why.

The weakest link isn't the leave itself. It's what happens when people come back. Reboarding is where companies fail, and most of them don't even know it. When Astrid speaks with HR leaders, the answer is almost always the same: we don't have a problem with parental leave. But when asked what their post-leave attrition rate is, most can't answer.

Because they've never measured it.

LEIA is building the infrastructure to change that – making parental leave visible, measurable, and something companies can actively manage, instead of something they assume is working. Astrid adds:

“Because supporting parents at work isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s workforce resilience, retention, and equity. It’s the future of work.”