Anna MalnuttParents who experience miscarriage – the loss of pregnancy during the first 23 weeks – should be legally entitled to paid bereavement leave, according to a report by MPs.
Currently only those who lose a child or a baby after 24 weeks are entitled to two weeks of paid leave. But a group of MPs is calling for the upcoming Employment Rights Bill to extend this to all pregnancy loss.
A Department for Business spokesperson said losing a baby was “incredibly difficult and we know many employers will show compassion and understanding in these circumstances.”
But Anna Malnutt said she went back to work three days after miscarrying: “I just didn’t really know how long was OK to take, and I felt like I needed to go back.”
Anna experienced three pregnancy losses in 2018.
Despite her boss being very supportive, she decided to go back to work three days after her first miscarriage, and it was recorded as sick leave.
After two further pregnancy losses, Anna said she “became a shadow of herself,” and struggled with stress and anxiety at work – which eventually led to her leaving her job.
“I’m sure that if I’d taken the time to recover properly and handled my return to work better, I would have stayed in that job,” she said.
‘They were his babies too’
Anna and her husband now have two children, and she works as a volunteer for the Miscarriage Association. She believes a right to paid bereavement leave would have been “life changing”.
Her husband attended meetings and work trips when the couple was going through their pregnancy losses.
“They were his babies too. And he never really got time or space to grieve for that himself,” she said.
Anna says it also meant he couldn’t support her in the way he would have wanted to.
“If there’d have been a policy, it would have been so much easier for him to say, ‘I’m going to have a couple of weeks off.'”
Getty ImagesIt is estimated that more than one in five pregnancies end before 24 weeks and around 20% of women will experience baby loss in their lifetime, according to data in the report by the cross-party Women and Equalities Committee.
It is proposing bereavement leave should be extended to include those who experienced ectopic pregnancy – when a baby grows outside of the womb, molar pregnancy – when an egg is not fertilised correctly, IVF embryo transfer loss and terminations for medical reasons.
The committee acknowledged that several employers, including NHS Trusts and the Co-op, already had policies in place for employees who experienced baby loss.
However, it said this was not universal.
The committee chairman, Labour MP Sarah Owen, shared her own experience of baby loss.
“I was not prepared for the shock of miscarrying at work during my first pregnancy,” she said.
“Like many women, I legally had to take sick leave. But I was grief stricken, not sick, harbouring a deep sense of loss.”
The report describes sick leave as an “inappropriate and inadequate” way of supporting staff through baby loss, and points out that the low rate of statutory sick pay means some people cannot afford to take the time off that they need.
Kath Abrahams, chief executive of Tommy’s, the pregnancy and baby charity, said she hoped the government would move quickly to change the law.
“For too many women, the psychological and physical impact of pregnancy loss is compounded by pressure to return to work immediately and a lack of time to grieve,” she said.
“It is unacceptable that sickness absence often remains the only option, potentially leaving women and their partners financially vulnerable,” she added.
The Employment Rights Bill is currently working its way through Parliament. It’s been described by the government as the “biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said: “Our Employment Rights Bill will establish a new right to bereavement leave, make paternity and parental leave a day one right, and strengthen protections for pregnant women and new mothers returning to work.”
