(Bloomberg Business) -- The workplace isn't always a friendlyplace for pregnant women. (Just ask the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided acase last month that could make it easier for some women to suetheir employers for pregnancy discrimination.) Yet working womeninclined to conceal a pregnancy from prying coworkers may be betteroff opening up and carrying on, according to a new study.

In a paper that appeared in the spring issue of The Academy ofManagement Journal, researchers from the University of Georgia, theUniversity of Houston-Clear Lake, Oklahoma State University, andthe Connection, a nonprofit, looked at three studies based onsurveys of hundreds of pregnant workers.

They found that women usually try to keep up their professionalimage in one of two ways. Some hid their pregnancies as long asthey could beyond the first trimester, wearing baggy clothes tohide a growing baby bump, masking morning sickness, or shruggingoff questions about being pregnant. Others were open about theirsituation but tried hard to maintain the status quo, focusing onworking the same number of hours as before.

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The researchers found that women who were stoic but upfrontabout their pregnancies were more likely to return to work aftergiving birth—and less likely to feel discriminated against orsuffer burnout. Those who kept it under wraps didn't experience thebenefits.

When women revealed pregnancy earlier and kept up with work, "ithad positive effects on so many levels — both for the individual[and] for the organization," says Virginia Smith Major, a co-authorof the paper and director of learning and organizationaldevelopment at the Connection, a social services nonprofit. Whilethe researchers weren't sure why women who engaged in what theycalled "image-maintenance" strategies seemed to reap benefits atwork, it could be, Major says, that "those more proactivestrategies gave women more of a sense of control over theirprofessional lives."

The research comes at an interesting time. Working women andadvocates alike have criticized companies for either openlydiscriminating against pregnant employees or forcing their handwith restrictive policies. As my colleague Clare Suddath'sreporting has shown, women have plenty of incentives to hidepregnancy: Many have been forced into unpaid leave, let go, orsnubbed while job-hunting, despite U.S. laws forbidding firing ordemoting employees simply because they're pregnant. "Women mightworry their coworkers will think they're not going to return towork, or that their pregnancy is going to make them moreemotional," Major says.

Although the researchers found benefits in a strategy thatinvolved being open at work about pregnancy, the rewards tended tocome after women made efforts to maintain their workloads anddidn't ask for special accommodations — not cases in which womenfaced complications that required them to take more time off. Thefact that a large share of women still fear how pregnancy mightderail their careers shows that "companies have a way to go indoing right by pregnant workers," says Laura Little, a professor atthe University of Georgia and a co-author of the paper.

The research by Smith and her colleagues suggests that the waywomen choose to respond to — or cover up — pregnancy can have atangible effect on their health. The best way to be pregnant atwork might be to flaunt it — as long as you don't dare ask for arest.

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