What are your thoughts on this maternity/work question?

Our lab has a new postdoc coming to work for us in the fall. (For those of you lucky enough to be removed from academia, a postdoc is someone who has finished his/her PhD and is working for, usually, 2–3 years in a new place to gain more experience before going on to look for a faculty or other job.)

We have never met her in person, and she is moving here from Europe to work with us. We learned this week that she is now pregnant, and will be having her baby sometime after arriving in the US. Her plan is to take approximately 3 weeks of maternity leave, and then return to work—bringing the baby with her in a papoose/sling.

The other members of my lab all think this is a terrible idea, and she should be required to find childcare rather than bring the baby with her. My boss doesn’t even know what he legally can and can’t say to her about the situation (I trust he is finding counsel on his own).

My question is this: women in science are increasingly scarce as you go up levels of experience. I think situations like this one probably contribute to this scarcity, so ideally I’d like to find a compromise—e.g., she could bring the baby to work for a few weeks before entering childcare, or work from home 2–3 days/week.

I have never had children, so I don’t know what the logistical concerns are, and it is also really important to me to see women in science succeed, so I do think we should make whatever accommodations are reasonable. What are your thoughts?