Parents who experience a miscarriage before 24 weeks of pregnancy will be entitled to bereavement leave under a planned law change.
The government is set to amend the Employment Rights Bill to give parents the legal right to take time off work to grieve if they experience pregnancy loss at any stage.
As it stands, bereavement leave is only available to parents who lose an unborn child after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the change will give “people time away from work to grieve”.
“No one who is going through the heartbreak of pregnancy loss should have to go back to work before they are ready,” Rayner said.
Parents are currently entitled to a fortnight’s leave if they suffer pregnancy loss after 24 weeks, or if a child younger than 18 dies.
The extended right to leave will be for “at least” one week, though the exact length is still being consulted on.
The Employment Rights Bill, which includes further measures to protect in law the right of employees to have time off to grieve the loss of a loved one, is already making its way through Parliament.
Labour MP Sarah Owen, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, called the move a “huge step forward to recognising that loss as a bereavement”.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that women were currently entitled to “absolutely nothing, aside from maybe sick leave”.
She said: “We know so many women just will not take it, and it also enforces the feeling that there’s something wrong with you.”
Owen, who previously campaigned for the change, said that the “overwhelming sense” she felt after her own miscarriage was of grief and loss rather than any physical issues.
“Nobody says ‘get well soon’ once you’ve had a miscarriage, they say ‘I’m really sorry for your loss’. It’s fantastic to see the law catch up with this.”
In March, business minister Justin Madders told MPs he accepted the principle of bereavement leave for pregnancy loss and promised to look at adding the right to the Employment Rights Bill.
Vicki Robinson, chief executive of the Miscarriage Association, welcomed the announcement.
She said it was “a hugely important step that acknowledges the often very significant impact of pre-24-week loss, not only for those experiencing the physical loss, but for their partners too”.
