Northern Ireland has become the first part of the United Kingdom to offer paid leave to women and their partners who endure a miscarriage.
As per the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ article by Niamh Campbell
The new regulations, which came into place on Monday, mean that people who experience a miscarriage are now entitled to up to two weeks’ leave and pay. This applies at any stage of pregnancy, whereas before, support was mainly for stillbirths after 24 weeks under parental bereavement laws, which remains the law across the rest of the UK.
The Belfast Telegraph article quotes Joanne Morgan of TinyLife (a local charity who support premature and sick babies, as well as their families) as saying
“I think this is long overdue…It is two weeks, which is not a very long period of time, but I think any period of time that enables parents to be able to kind of deal with the loss is definitely something that should be welcomed.”
The BBC report on the news highlights the story of several women such as Erin Sharkey and what she faced. In her interview, Erin explains what this change would have meant for her…
For Erin, a volunteer with the Miscarriage Association, the move will “give people the validation for their feelings, and time to process the loss together”. She said her employer had been supportive but “societally” she felt pressure to go back to work. Her miscarriages, she said, were like having “all your dreams for gorgeous happy moments come crashing down” – from planning to a future with a child to total loss.
“During the first few days, people were texting, saying they were thinking of me. But then that stopped. I thought I must have hit the point where people expect me to be OK. “My partner didn’t even take a day off work – because we knew other people who’d had miscarriages and their partners didn’t take time off. If she had been there with me for two weeks, that would have reduced my trauma significantly.”
Half (50%) of adults in the UK said that they, or someone they know, had experienced pregnancy or baby loss. Most miscarriages happen in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (known as early miscarriage). It is estimated that early miscarriages happen to 10-20 in 100 (10 to 20%) of pregnancies.
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