Creating compassionate workplaces with pregnancy loss leave

With a growing awareness and recognition around the profound physical, mental, and emotional toll of pregnancy loss, more organizations are including pregnancy loss leave into their employee policies. This specific type of workplace leave is granted to employees who experience a miscarriage, stillbirth, or other form of pregnancy loss and reflects an increased commitment to fostering more compassionate and inclusive workplaces. 

By acknowledging pregnancy loss as a deeply impactful life event, employers can create a more supportive environment that promotes employee mental health and emotional recovery, as well as destigmatizes what is often an incredibly isolating and lonely type of grief. 

Read on to learn more about why HR and benefits leaders need to prioritize pregnancy loss leave, how it aligns with broader equity goals and retention, and actionable steps to implement new, compassionate leave policies at your company.

Why pregnancy loss leave matters

Pregnancy loss can take an immense emotional and physical toll on parents-to-be and their families, and of course, these psychological and physiological effects show up at work as well.

Emotional and physical impact of pregnancy loss

The emotional weight of pregnancy loss is often devastating and heavy. As with any loss, grief and anxiety often show up hand in hand, but unlike other losses, pregnancy loss can be especially hard to talk about. Despite up to 20% of known pregnancies resulting in a miscarriage, pregnancy loss is still stigmatized and often taboo to discuss openly. Many people have their grief and stress compounded by feeling like they're unable to be honest about their loss and how it's affecting them. When left unaddressed, this stress and grief can have long-term mental health effects and even physical stress manifestations like chronic pain and illness.

The mental health effects often extend beyond the pregnant parent too. Non-birthing partners and spouses also feel intense grief and stress around the pregnancy loss, but they’re often even more overlooked than the pregnant person. 

This weighty emotional toll does not even account for the intense physical recovery that pregnancy loss may require. While physical recovery from a miscarriage might only take a few days, a stillbirth—defined as the loss of a baby at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later—can have long-lasting physical repercussions and symptoms may last for months. With a stillbirth, while someone is in the early initial stages of processing the loss of their baby, they are also recovering physically from the incredibly taxing and challenging experience of labor and delivery (natural or induced) or a C-section.

Workplace implications

Without a compassionate loss leave policy, many employees are not able to take additional time off, which understandably affects their work performance. Defined as the inability to report for or remain at work as scheduled, employee absenteeism is costly for companies, as is presenteeism, which occurs when an employee continues to work when they're unwell, impairing their performance. Absenteeism and presenteeism cost U.S. employers nearly $3,000 per employee each year. The true total cost of reduced productivity and burnout is even harder to quantify.

Caring for your employees is not only the right thing to do; it's also good for business. A growing body of research shows that supporting employee mental health benefits a company's bottom line. In fact, for every dollar invested in mental health interventions, there is a $4 return on investment in improved health and productivity. This fourfold return has become a priority for many business leaders, resulting in increased productivity, heightened loyalty, and lower turnover costs.

Existing pregnancy loss leave policies

In 2017, India became the first country to provide pregnancy loss leave under the Maternity Benefit Act, which grants an employee six weeks of paid miscarriage leave. In 2021, New Zealand followed suit with a policy that requires employers to provide three days of paid time off without tapping into sick leave. In the United States, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires employers to provide 12 weeks of unpaid time off to employees with a “serious health condition”. However, pregnancy loss is not always considered a serious health condition, and many people cannot afford to take the time unpaid.

Goldman Sachs, Liberty Mutual, and Pinterest are among some of the companies who now offer pregnancy loss leave specifically, and other companies explicitly allow parental leave or bereavement leave to extend to pregnancy loss too—a 2023 Illinois law even requires it. However, not all companies offer bereavement leave as paid leave.

How to implement pregnancy loss leave in your organization

Drafting a policy

When implementing a pregnancy loss leave policy, be sure to use inclusive definitions to cover all forms of pregnancy loss, including miscarriages, stillbirths, ectopic pregnancies, and medical terminations. Additionally, avoid using explicitly gendered language in the policy, since not all pregnant people identify as women and to expand the policy support to the non-birthing parents as well. The UK-based Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Trust provides an example template for companies looking to implement similar policies.

In terms of leave duration, you can offer flexibility by providing a base leave duration (e.g. 3 days) with options to extend if necessary to balance recovery time and business needs. While some companies provide their full delivery/parental leave to those experiencing pregnancy loss too, most offer anywhere from 3 days to 4 weeks.

Lastly, ensure your pregnancy loss leave policy uses language to normalize grief. Since this type of loss is often so stigmatized and difficult to discuss, using explicit and compassionate verbiage to address the specific grief of pregnancy loss can go a long way in helping employees feel seen and supported.

Communication strategies

With a pregnancy leave loss policy in place, make sure your human resources leaders and people managers not only know about the policy details but also how to handle any questions and conversations with empathy and sensitivity. Additionally, make sure the new policy is communicated clearly and accessibly to employees, ideally in multiple channels (e.g. email, team meeting, and Slack update).

Learn more about how to train managers to handle sensitive conversations while driving to relevant benefits

Integration with other benefits

Pregnancy loss policies can also be integrated with other mental health support benefits, counseling or therapy benefits, or fertility and family-building benefits for more holistic support. Another way to provide inclusive support is encouraging flexible work arrangements after the bereavement leave to ease the transition back to work.

Addressing potential challenges

Budget and operational concerns

Bereavement leave and pregnancy loss policies can be scaled based on company size. Some factors to consider are direct costs of these policies, indirect costs (including the costs of reduced productivity and absenteeism as mentioned above), and future growth goals, accounting for how many employees would benefit from this policy in the next few years, not just right now.

Companies of various sizes have implemented these pregnancy loss policies with minimal disruption. At the University of Arizona, employees who miscarry are entitled to two weeks of paid parental leave, and many of them have spoken openly about how much this time off has helped them and increased their loyalty to the university.

The bigger picture: Creating a compassionate workplace

As an inclusive and compassionate leave policy, pregnancy loss leave ties nicely into broader diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives by explicitly supporting women and families. Moreover, by acknowledging a type of grief that is often ignored and unsupported, it also supports building an empathetic workplace culture that values employee well-being.

To understand the impact and adoption of the new policy, consider adding a question or section to your next employee feedback survey. Along with other women's and family benefits, this pregnancy loss leave will likely have a positive impact on employee retention and workplace satisfaction metrics when observed over time.

Leading with compassion

With nearly one in four pregnancies ending in miscarriage, pregnancy loss is likely already affecting your workforce. Reviewing existing fertility benefits and bereavement leave, identifying policy gaps, and implementing a specific pregnancy loss leave policy can help destigmatize this distinct grief and support employees through a life-altering loss.

Maven is the leading women's and family healthcare company, providing 24/7 clinical, emotional, and financial support all in one place. Maven can work with employers to personalize care for their dynamic team to ensure that employees experiencing pregnancy loss receive comprehensive care. Interested in learning more about what Maven can do for you? Let's chat.