I think you must misunderstand FMLA. FMLA is job protection to take care of medical issues (you or family member). It isn't really any red tape, but it prevents an employer from firing you during those 12 weeks and it prevents them from denying your PTO. So if you have 4 weeks of PTO saved up they cant deny your time off request to take care of your baby for 4 weeks. FMLA leave is unpaid.
I wish it were just me misunderstanding FMLA. It's not intentionally red tape and I was being a bit hyperbolic, but the "optional" certification forms for FMLA in the hands of a lot of corporate HR drones become "required" because HR wants "CYA" despite that not being the intent of the certification forms. Maternity leave doesn't even have a direct "certification form" nor is it supposed to because it should be pretty obvious to an employer (much less the Department of Labor) to "certify" a maternity, but a lot of mothers in the US workforce get burdened by idiots in their HR departments to fill out CYA paperwork sometimes in the hospital with an implied threat that their job is on the line if they don't. Despite that not being how FMLA works or is intended to work. I don't know why so many companies seem to misunderstand some of these basic facts about FMLA, I just know that forums are filled with pregnant people complaining about their HR representatives giving them paper "homework" sometimes in the worst possible moments, just to "prove" their maternity leave "because FMLA requires it". (It doesn't.)
