Pregnancy loss isn’t just a personal issue, it’s a workplace issue

When an employee is growing their family, support is often easy to find. With baby showers at home, and parental leave and other benefits at work, the community comes together to help them with the new addition to the family. 

Unfortunately, parents are often isolated and on their own if that pregnancy ends in a miscarriage or stillborn birth. At a time when a family needs more support than ever, cultural traditions favor silence instead.  

But ignoring the suffering of an employee doesn’t make it go away. The strain is significant: After pregnancy loss, employees are more likely to experience productivity problems, and even change jobs. 

In addition, pregnancy loss is extremely common, occurring in 10% to 20% of pregnancies overall and in about 10% of early pregnancies, according to the American College Obstetrics—when a pregnancy may or may not be visible to others.

At a time when the most competitive employers in the U.S. are transforming their relationships with employees to invest in their well-being (and enjoy the ROI), pregnancy loss remains a blind spot. 

It is not just a personal issue, it is a workplace issue—and one that more and more employers are eager to address.

The new focus on pregnancy loss

The Society for Human Resource Management identified pregnancy loss support as a growing trend in 2023, saying: “Miscarriage leave has historically been a rare company offering; it hasn’t been an isolated benefit or a part of most employers’ bereavement policies. But a shift is occurring, with a handful of employers now offering employees the benefit.” 

Among the growing number of employers that have added paid time off to employees after miscarriage: Goldman Sachs, Liberty Mutual, Bumble, and Pinterest. 

And there is a growing recognition that meaningful bereavement care must include miscarriage and pregnancy loss. In fact, 24 percent of bereavement leave policies allow an employee to take time off for a miscarriage or failed in vitro fertilization, according to recent data from benefits consultancy NFP. 

The particular pain of unrecognized loss

Compounding the impact of pregnancy loss is what grief experts call disenfranchised grief. When a loss is not openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned, or publicly mourned, there can be intense pressure to “get over it.”

When an employee feels like they are not living up to society’s rules about grief, this can lead to intense feelings of isolation, shame, and guilt. 

Thus, simply recognizing pregnancy loss as a major milestone in an employee’s life is a step toward lessening their suffering. And giving them the time they need to recover from this significant loss will avoid the lingering, long-term effects of unaddressed grief. 

Keep in mind, this affects the whole organization because when an employee is struggling with loss, their team is, too. 

Better care through better policies

Educating employees on how to provide meaningful support is an excellent first step. 

Grief often makes well-meaning people tongue-tied, afraid of saying the wrong thing to a person who is already struggling—and in the professional environment this is even more common. Addressing grief illiteracy through training of managers and colleagues is key to dealing with all kinds of loss in the workplace.

With pregnancy loss, however, there are other dynamics at play: assigning blame and minimizing the loss, even by well-meaning people. Grieving parents are often asked, “What happened?” or “What caused this?” Others may seek to ease their suffering by pointing out that this is “nature’s wisdom” or other “bright-side” statements that can cause more harm than good. Education can create a true culture of care at a time when an employee needs it most.

The next step is taking action through policy changes. Employers like Goldman Sachs, Liberty Mutual, Bumble, and Pinterest have expanded their leave policies to address pregnancy loss. But there are additional ways to support an employee who is suffering. 

In the initial days after a loss, employers can offer services like: house cleaners, child care, pet care, or meal delivery. In addition, professional grief counselors and therapists who specialize in grief are a crucial resource to employees, since emotional and cognitive challenges are widespread among people who have suffered a loss.

Empathy’s Cost of Dying Report showed that 83% of those who are grieving a loved one experienced anxiety and 73% reported confusion in the aftermath of loss, and 30% experienced unusual anger or irritability for months. In addition, sleep disorders are common among people in grief, with 76% saying they suffered a change in sleep patterns after loss—something their general practitioner or possibly a sleep expert can address. 

For employees who have experienced pregnancy loss, the physical and emotional effects of grief are paired with some of the aftereffects of childbirth—making their struggles even more daunting. 

Their pain has been ignored, minimized, and unaddressed for too long, simply because of a blind spot created by cultural taboos. 

Employers can and should offer care to get them through these difficult times, in a sensitive way that respects employees’ privacy. Pregnancy loss policy is long overdue for an overhaul, and the most competitive employers in the U.S. are recognizing its importance in improving employee well-being.