Maternity benefit is periodical payment(s) to an insured woman for specified period of abstention from work, due to confinement, miscarriage or sickness arising out of pregnancy, pre-mature birth of child or miscarriage or confinement. The rate of maternity benefit shall be equal to the standard benefit rate. W.e.f. 20.1.2017 Maternity Benefit has also been extended to a “commissioning mother' (who as biological mother wises to have a child and prefers to get embryo implanted in any other woman) and a insured woman who legally adopts a child of upto three months of age.