Miscarriage bereavement leave -a sensitive well thought proposal or would there be unintended consequences

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9k12w5j54o

This is extremely sensitive but I wonder if this well meaning proposal would become a reality in the workplace. I think in terms of employment the application of the rules may result in a scrutiny that would be potentially intrusive.

For example how would you prove to your employer you were pregnant?

Would the period of gestation count towards the leave given?

Would a father of the unborn child be entitled to similar leave to grieve and support their partner?

I think in the whole this is compassionate and a good stride forward but I do wonder about its practical uptake.

Also does this out women in a position of broadcasting a pregnancy to the workplace which might in itself be something the woman wishes to remain private. Also I think in an unscrupulous workplace you would need extensions of job protection to those trying to conceive as well as those pregnant because by admitting a miscarriage you are putting forward to an employer you probably have the continued desire to conceive and how will the more cruel employer view this in future?

I think it will be valuable for people who are very badly affected by earlier miscarriage. But I also think women will be disadvantaged if they use it in most workplaces. Outing yourself as TTC means no more promotions, big projects etc. I had an MMC at 11 weeks and went straight back to work after the d&c. No way could I risk people knowing at work!

Will there also be a limit on what is counted? I have a lot of friends who were distraught after a chemical pregnancy and claimed they had had 5-6 miscarriages in a year when in reality they amounted to late periods.

I think your right. There is a work place reality to be confronted and legislation introduced without other protections could lead women to naively admit something to a bastard boss' they shouldn't. I agree signalling a miscarriage could lead to a company seeing you as someone keen to start a family and therefore deprioritise work and the long term promotions go elsewhere.

I also agree with how do you draw the line. Do IVF failures count? (or any sort of fertility treament?). How many tears have to fall before your boss to make a case 'legitimate'?.

It feels.like a trap for women with less that desirable employers and it's probably working class women that would be at most risk not those in well paid public sector roles for example.

For example how would you prove to your employer you were pregnant?

Why would you have to?
How do people prove stress? Or anxiety leading to sickness leave?

I also agree with how do you draw the line. Do IVF failures count? (or any sort of fertility treament?). How many tears have to fall before your boss to make a case 'legitimate'?.

No, because factually IVF that doesn’t lead to pregnancy is not a miscarriage.

Many companies have IVF policies that allow time off for appointments.

Miscarriagss do happen with IVF and I think there is a debate about the psychological impact on failed implantation (is there leave entitlement for that?). I suppose the general point is that this is an extremely nuanced area and I wonder if legislation is the best way forward (or if legislating take time about it).

The issue legally is that if someone phoned up their boss says they have miscarried and it has to be taken at face value without evidence this does give room for the less than moral employee to take leave. Is like argue this would be a wholly inappropriate way to treat your employer but it might make employers more nervous about employing women generally (obviously this shouldn't be the case but reality isn't perfect)

But this is illogical when compared to the many other reasons for sickness leave. No one has to prove mental illness, no one proves stress. Where’s the burden of proof when someone takes 6 months stress leave? It’s just the employee saying they are too unwell to work to their GP. Why are you assuming miscarriage should be treated differently and women would have to prove it?

Obviously miscarriage can happen with IVF, that doesn’t mean unsuccessful IVF rounds are miscarriages. I’m not sure why you’re trying to link them.

I agree - it's a difficult one. Where I work at the moment, pregnancy loss is logged as sick leave but doesn't count towards your sickness triggers. It's also fully paid (we get good sick pay) but obviously it only happens if you tell your manager the truth. I was lucky I had a good manager when I had a tfmr at 16w and knew I could tell him without any impact on my job. I didn't have to provide any proof (although in my case I would have had a letter from the consultant advising the baby was incompatible with life), he just trusted me. I think it's a good idea - but I do wonder if those with good/trusting employers, would get the time off anyway and those who work for worse employers/worried it would affect their career would still keep it a secret so wouldn't benefit anyway.

I think it’s a good idea. I had a miscarriage 12 years ago and my days off counted towards my Bradford score (the school I was teaching in at the time used that). I also had a very difficult return to work interview where all questions were designed to ask about my symptoms of illness. I’m sure a return to work interview after bereavement is far more compassionate.

Why would someone lie about it? The pay for SBL is £187.18 a week it’s not like someone is going to get 2 weeks off fully paid. You also do not need to give proof of death or still birth currently, although admittedly probably harder to lie about and keep up the lie.

I imagine most women with occupational sick pay entitlements would prefer to take the time off as sickness.

I think there is a difference between a miscarriage at 7 weeks and let’s say 16 weeks and cannot be compared. I have had several miscarriages before 12 weeks and didn’t take sick leave. It’s very common to miscarry early and we should not medicalise that and create even more sick leavers.
So personally don’t support it for very early miscarriages.

In my workplace you would get full pay most likely. And yes, many people would lie to get the leave. People do all the time.

I’m sorry for your losses but just because you didn’t take leave doesn’t mean no one else should be able to. People are entitled to feel upset about a miscarriage before 12 weeks, not to mention the physical side effects.

I don’t think that’s very different to now. With my first pregnancy I was signed off with bad morning sickness, and then I miscarried at 8 weeks. The sickness absence didn’t count as it was pregnancy related, but no one had any proof of that. The dr signed me off at 5 weeks based on my word, but GPs don’t do pregnancy tests, and work had to take the fit note as truth (which it was!).
Where I worked at the time paid full pay for sickness, and so if I was so inclined I could easily have had 3 weeks off at full pay without it counting like ordinary sickness would have, and not actually been pregnant at all.

Shouldn’t medicalise it? Many women need or choose to have a surgical miscarriage well before 16 or 12 weeks. You might have swanned back into work hours after your miscarriage but that doesn’t make it admirable or preferable.
You don’t get a medal for being less physically or emotionally affected than other women.

Then you can ask your GP to sign you off should you need it. A high proportion of pregnancies ends in miscarriage before 12 weeks. Thats a hell
of a lot of sick leaves if everyone needs to get signed off for a few weeks after one. We need to reduce sick leave in this country, not encourage more and sometimes people just need to crack on with things.

As we've seen with other employment law updates such as neonatal care leave, I think the government will take a light touch approach when it comes to 'proof'

Why would they need to get their GP to sign them off as sick when there’s a statutory leave exactly for their situation?
I guess we can all be thankful people as ignorant and as you aren’t policy designers.

There is nothing admirable about someone putting their employer above their own needs in the literal hours after a miscarriage.

I’m worried about intended consequences, but different ones to those discussed here.

This could potentially help open the door to the removal of abortion rights, because it would be introducing the idea into law that a baby is a living person and a miscarriage is a death.

Of course pregnancy loss is an awful thing to go through. But given some recent events, I think it this is an absolutely terrible idea. It should be a form of special leave that all employers are required to give. Not bereavement leave. Has nobody thought of this?! I might actually write to my MP.

Plenty of employers pay for this kind of leave, I would get paid special leave for bereavement.

So I already said I disagree with statutory leave for miscarriages before 12 weeks. I absolutely think it should be extended to miscarriages after 12 weeks though. MOST of us, don’t need bereavement leave for a miscarriage at 6 weeks.

Then it would save GP time by not writing fit notes. And this would be statutory bereavement leave not sick leave anyway

You can self certify sick up to 5 days. That would be enough for most people after an early miscarriage. A miscarriage at 6 weeks is not a bereavement. Sure you can feel a bit sad about it, I also did.

We should absolutely medicalise that. Miscarriages aren’t just bad luck. There’s always a medical reason. We aren’t always able to find the reason because the medical understanding isn’t there - one day it will be. My early miscarriages were a sign of a serious clotting condition, which causes a large proportion of strokes and heart attacks in younger people. 30/40 years ago this condition wasn’t even known.

Heart attacks and cancer are also common.

Just because something is common doesn’t mean it’s not serious and should be minimised.

So what if you didn’t take sick leave? That’s you. I doubt work thanked you.

It’s not for you to tell people that their miscarriage was less of a loss, less important, because of a few days difference. People are allowed to feel how they feel and grieve for their loss, whatever the pregnancy length.

Most miscarriages are just bad luck. I also have the same condition as you and had to take aspirin etc btw