Pregnancy discrimination grows: with a little planning, you can avoid being included in the growing number of pregnancy discrimination suits.

It should have been a joyous time: Mailyn Pickler of Mesa. Ariz., was pregnant. But about a week after she shared her good news with her employer, Berge Ford auto dealership, the company issued a stunning response.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

She was fired.

"They said

On the "bright" side, her employer assured her that she could return to work ... after the baby was born.

Losing her job as a representative in the service department meant that Pickler also lost her health insurance. "I just cried when they told me," she remembers. "I was 19 years old, out of a job, no insurance, and it was right before Christmas. It was just one thing after another."

She may have been young, but Pickler knew that she wasn't being treated fairly, so she contacted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) office in her state. The EEOC filed charges on her behalf, and the case was settled out of court for $70,000.

Pickler's termination is far from unusual. In fact, since that unpleasant day in 2001, the number of pregnancy discrimination claims, which was already on the rise jumped an additional 5 percent by 2004.

Fast-Growing Discrimination

Despite the nation's declining birth rate, pregnancy discrimination cases filed with the EEOC increased 39 percent between 1992 and 2003, making it one of the fastest-growing types of employment discrimination charge filed with the agency, outpacing even sexual harassment and sex discrimination charges.

Not only have more pregnancy discrimination cases been filed with the agency, but the number of cases where cause was found also has increased. And the amount collected in these cases jumped threefold from 1992 to 2003.

"We recover about $12 million or $13 million a year through litigation," says David Grinberg, a spokesman with the EEOC in Washington, D.C., "and that is in addition to what we recover in the pre-litigation process where most of the charges are settled."

(In 2004, the percentage of pregnancy claims settled reached 15.6 percent--it's highest total since the EEOC started tracking such results in 1992.)