Miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death – your rights at work

This article covers your rights at work in the incredibly difficult circumstances where you have a miscarriage, stillbirth, or if your baby dies. We recognise that this is a traumatic and distressing time and we have set out this page to help understand the law in this area. For the purposes of your rights under the law, if a baby is stillborn before the 24th week of pregnancy, it is called a miscarriage. If a baby is stillborn after the beginning of the 24th week of pregnancy it is called a stillbirth.

What can I claim if I have a miscarriage?

If you have a miscarriage, unfortunately you will not be entitled to maternity leave, paternity leave or shared parental leave. 

Sick leave

If you are not well enough to work due to your miscarriage, you are entitled to take sick leave. Sick leave for a miscarriage may be protected in the same way as sick leave for a pregnancy-related illness. You should check your employer’s policy or speak to a member of management to confirm which procedures apply.

Your sick pay (including Statutory Sick Pay) will be paid in the same way as for any other employee, and you may be only paid it for a certain amount of time depending on your employer’s sickness absence policy. Your employer may offer you contractual sick pay, or just Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).  If you do not earn enough to claim SSP or your SSP runs out, then you may be entitled to Employment and Support Allowance (in some areas, income-related Employment and Support Allowance is replaced by Universal Credit if you are making a new claim). Check with your Jobcentre Plus office.

Compassionate leave

You or your partner’s employer may also provide compassionate leave in such a case, or agree a period of annual leave or unpaid leave.

For more information on returning to work after a miscarriage, you might find the Miscarriage Association helpful. They offer a helpline and advice for employees and employers on going back to work after a miscarriage.

What are my rights if my baby dies or is stillborn?

If you have a stillbirth, or if your baby is born alive but later dies, even after a few seconds (and even if this takes place before the 24th week of pregnancy), you are entitled to all your maternity rights.

If you are already on maternity leave, you do not have to take any action. However, if the birth happened before you intended to start maternity leave, or before you gave notice of maternity leave to your employer, your maternity leave will start the day after the birth and you will need to inform your employer as soon as you can.

If your baby dies or is stillborn before the end of the qualifying week for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), special rules apply in determining whether you will qualify for SMP. The eight week test period used to calculate your average earnings runs to the last payday in or before the week in which the birth/stillbirth occurred, and you will be treated as though you had 26 weeks’ service by the end of the qualifying week if you would have had, had your baby not been born early.

If you are entitled to Maternity Allowance (MA), but have not yet claimed it, you should claim it as soon as you can, explaining on the form what happened.  If you have claimed MA but are not yet receiving it (for example because you were not planning maternity leave to start yet) you must let Jobcentre Plus know what has happened.

If you return to work within six months of the birth you are entitled to the same health and safety rights as other women who have given birth within the last six months. For more information, see our article on health and safety after maternity leave.

Paternity rights

If you have a partner who is eligible for paternity leave, they will still be entitled to take this after a stillbirth. This leave must be completed within 56 days of the birth. However, if the baby was born early, the leave must be completed within the period from the actual date of birth to 56 days after the expected week of birth.

Statutory Paternity Pay also applies in the same way if they are entitled to it.

Shared Parental Leave

The rules are slightly different for Shared Parental Leave and Pay if your baby passes away. If you or your partner had given notice before the birth of the baby to take Shared Parental Leave and the baby is born but then dies, you or your partner are entitled to take the leave that has already been booked.

To cancel any Shared Parental Leave that has already been booked, you should give at least eight weeks’ notice. The law says if you want to make changes such as to reduce the amount of leave booked or vary blocks of leave into a single period of shared parental leave, you can give one notice of variation, subject to eight weeks’ notice.  However, you and your employer may come to an agreement that you will take less leave than you had planned.

If your baby dies before you or your partner have given notice to book Shared Parental Leave, then unfortunately any further entitlement to Shared Parental Leave will be lost, as you cannot give a notice to book leave after the baby has died.

In case of a stillbirth (where a baby is born dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy), the regulations are unclear but it is unlikely that you will be entitled to Shared Parental Leave. In such cases, the mother can still take maternity leave and the partner can still take paternity leave (assuming they are eligible).

You can get more information and support from the organisation SANDS.

Parental Bereavement Leave

You have the right to take 2 weeks of parental bereavement leave during the year following your baby’s death. This is available to both parents, regardless of how long you have worked for your employer. You can take it in one block of 2 weeks or 2 blocks of 1 week each.

Your employer cannot refuse a request for parental bereavement leave, but you must take it within 56 weeks of your child passing away. For more information, have a look at our parental bereavement leave page. Whilst you are on parental bereavement leave, you may be entitled to parental bereavement pay.

If you need more time off after a miscarriage, stillbirth or when your baby dies

If you are not ready to return to work after taking maternity, paternity and/or parental bereavement leave, there are some further options you may wish to consider:

• Sick leave – If you are not well enough to return to work then you can take sick leave. You should follow your company’s usual sickness procedures. You will usually receive statutory sick pay after 3 days of sickness absence, and this usually lasts for 28 weeks. You should check your employer’s sickness policy because some employers offer more generous arrangements.

• Annual leave – You could apply for a period of annual leave. Note that your normal holiday entitlement continues to accrue during maternity leave so you may have some holiday to use up.

• Unpaid leave – Your employer might agree to period of unpaid leave, however they are not required to do this. If your employer does agree, you should aim to agree the dates of the leave in writing, and obtain written confirmation that you have the right to return to the same job when you get back.

• Flexible working request – If you think it would help you to reduce your hours or otherwise change the hours that you work, you should submit a flexible working request in writing to your employer. Your employer has two months to give you a decision, so you should make the request well in advance if you can.

What benefits can I claim?

If you have a stillbirth, or a live birth but the baby dies afterwards, you may be entitled to the Sure Start Maternity Grant (in Scotland, the Best Start Grant) and/or the Funeral Expenses Payment (in Scotland, the Funeral Support Payment).

For a live birth, you are also entitled to Child Benefit for the period from the birth until eight weeks after the baby’s death. You can make a claim for Child Benefit and up to three months after you are entitled to it. You may also be temporarily entitled to a child element in Universal Credit, or (usually only if you are already claiming it) in Child Tax Credit. However, you may not be entitled to a child element if you already have more than one child.

If you need time off work due to a stillbirth, a miscarriage or a bereavement, you may be entitled to statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance, statutory paternity pay, statutory sick pay or statutory bereavement pay (see above). If you’re not entitled to these, or they are not enough to live on, you may be able to claim benefits, or increased amounts of benefits you are already on. You can contact Citizens Advice if you need help to understand the effects on your benefits.

Funeral expenses

You can claim a Funeral Expenses Payment if you are responsible for funeral expenses. You will be treated as responsible if you are the parent of a stillborn child, or the parent’s partner. Usually this must be for a funeral in the UK, although sometimes it is possible to get help with a funeral in another EEA state. You must be on certain benefits in respect of the day you claim the payment. In Scotland, you can claim a Funeral Support Payment.

If you want more information on the Funeral Expenses Payment or the Funeral Support Payment contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

You can get further advice and support if your baby is stillborn or dies from SANDS.

This advice applies in England, Wales and Scotland. If you live in another part of the UK, the law may differ. If you are in Northern Ireland you can visit the Labour Relations Agency or call their helpline Workplace Information Service on 03300 555 300.

Our helpline and online contact form is now closed as we wind down our operations. Our free legal advice pages remain available and up to date until further notice. You can find a list of trusted organisations that may be able to help you below.