Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., announced the arrival of her daughter this week, boosting the ranks of congresswomen who have given birth in office.

It’s still a small group — just 14 others have given birth to children while serving as sitting members of Congress, according to the House historian’s office.

The announcement, which she posted Thursday on social media alongside a picture of her holding a swaddled newborn, comes amid an ongoing legal battle. She faces up to 17 years in prison over a tense incident that unfolded outside an immigration detention center as she attempted to conduct an oversight visit last year.

“Being a mom is one of the greatest joys of my life, and I feel deeply grateful to welcome this beautiful, healthy baby into the world,” McIver said in a statement. 

McIver plans to return to voting in November when the House returns after the midterm elections, according to her office. 

Prior to McIver, Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., was the most recent congresswoman to give birth, in August of last year, while Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., came before that in January 2025. 

McIver is the second Black woman to give birth as a sitting member of Congress, after Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who was also the first congresswoman to give birth overall in the 1970s.

The New Jersey Democrat has spoken publicly about her struggles with infertility and uterine fibroids over the years, as well as her use of IVF. She has a 10-year-old daughter and is one of only a few women in Congress with young children. At the beginning of the 119th Congress, there were fewer than 40 moms of minor children, and just a handful of them had children under 6, according to an analysis by the Vote Mama Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to break barriers moms face when running for office.

Congress has no system of formalized parental leave for lawmakers, despite calls for accommodations for new moms. A group of lawmakers led by Pettersen has called for a rules change in the House that would allow new parents to cast votes by proxy in the weeks after birth, a push McIver has said she supports.

“Bringing a child into the world is a reminder not only of why we fight for maternal healthcare and reproductive rights, but of why we fight for the rights and freedoms of our most vulnerable – they are someone’s babies too,” she said in her statement.