I was responding to: My wife's friend recently had a baby, and she exploited the situation to the full. [...] And I'm basically saying, why shouldn't she?
Maybe it's just me, but I thought it was clear that the author was referring to the abuse of such benefits, not that she was wrong for using that benefits legitimately.
Just to clarify again, I was talking about exploiting as in "the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work." Not "the action of making use of and benefiting from resources." To make the difference clear in my edit, I used the term "utilizing" for the latter.