Govt urged to extend bereavement leave to parents of younger unborn babies

The Government has been urged to ensure that all parents who lose a baby before 24 weeks can receive paid bereavement leave.

The Women and Equalities Committee’s report, ‘Equality at work: Miscarriage and bereavement leave’, highlighted that over one in five babies die before 24 weeks’ gestation, but only parents who lose a child after the abortion threshold are legally entitled to two weeks’ paid leave.

Last year, more parents in England who lost their baby due to a miscarriage became eligible for a Baby Loss Certificate. But the committee emphasised that this alone “does not go far enough” in “recognising the grief of women and their families who experience pre-24 week pregnancy losses”.

‘Grief’

Sarah Owen MP, who chairs the committee, reflected that she was “not prepared for the grief of miscarrying. I was even more shocked that I was not entitled to bereavement leave but legally had to take sick leave instead. But what I was feeling was not a sickness.

“It was physically painful, yes, but my overriding feeling was grief: a deep sense of loss of hopes, dreams and mourning a lost future with babies I never got to hold”.

Anna Mulnutt, who suffered the loss of three babies, said that a lack of policy meant that her husband had to continue working while they were both processing their grief.

She said: “They were his babies too. And he never really got time or space to grieve for that himself”.

Baby loss

In September, research found that mothers who have suffered a miscarriage would prefer medics to use “humanising” terminology such as “baby”.

‘Acceptability in pregnancy loss language’, by Dr Beth Malory and Dr Louise Nuttall, analysed survey responses from 391 women in the UK who lost a baby over the last three years, in order to inform the best language to use on websites and in policies.

The study found that, at 91 per cent, the “overwhelming majority of respondents considered baby the most acceptable word to use regardless of the gestation at which the loss occurred”.