Going Back to Work After a Pregnancy Loss

Nothing is more full of life, potential, and possibility than the experience of expecting a child, of carrying new life and waiting to bring it into the world. Birth is all beginning, the furthest we will ever be, in life, from death.

Except when it isn’t.

About one in four women experiences pregnancy loss through miscarriage, stillbirth, or very early death of a newborn. Miscarriage, the natural loss of a fetus in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, occurs in around 25% of pregnancies, with 1% of women experiencing recurrent — three or more — miscarriages. Stillbirth, the natural loss of a fetus after 20 weeks of pregnancy, occurs in 1% of pregnancies. Despite the frequency of these losses and their impact on those who experience them, however, they are rarely talked about — and that burden of silence is especially heavy as the parents return to work. There, in addition to the upheaval that grief creates within them, they must confront colleagues who know nothing of their suffering, or who know just enough to make interactions painful.

In this article we attempt to give voice to the experience of those returning to work after a pregnancy loss, highlight ways to make it if not less difficult, then at least no harder than it needs to be, and offer some suggestions of how managers and coworkers can help.

The Experience of Pregnancy Loss

The impact of losing a baby in pregnancy, birth, or shortly after is immense. That pain can impair day-to-day functioning and lead to social withdrawal, intrusive thoughts, and feelings of numbness. Research has found that pregnancy loss is associated with post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and sleeping disorders. Although such symptoms usually diminish over the first year, some parents will experience an extended state of heightened mourning known as “complicated grief.” This is often accompanied by feelings of guilt, envy of others who have children, and ongoing distress due to the unexpected and sudden nature of the death. (And if the loss is of one’s first child, some may find it hard to claim the identity of parent, adding confusion to the intense pain of grief.)

The birth mother’s emotional anguish after a miscarriage or stillbirth is often compounded by physical pain, which, depending on the circumstances and the medical procedures involved, might last weeks. The follow-up treatments and medical check-ups, when necessary, are vivid reminders of the loss. At the same time, her partner’s suffering is frequently overlooked. Coworkers might have no way of knowing that the person has suffered a major loss. For men in particular, research finds that they are often seen primarily as the main source of support for their partners after the loss of a pregnancy, leaving little room for their own grief and mourning, and prompting few offers of support for them.

On returning to the workplace, those bereaved through pregnancy loss must not only cope with their own grief, which can come in unexpected waves triggered by small things, but also other people’s awkwardness with them at work. One bereaved father we spoke to shared how he saw a pregnant woman take a step when he entered an elevator “as if to say, ‘I want to get out,’ you know, as if stillbirth might be catching.” Although she may have been trying to spare his feelings, he did not experience it that way.

While researching our recent article about how people experience, and deal with, death in the workplace, we often heard that the Western taboo around death is amplified in professional settings. That silence, we learned, is loudest and most upsetting when it comes to child bereavement in general, and the loss of unborn children in particular. Beyond the trauma itself, the loss is often further complicated by its invisibility — if, for example, the pregnancy is lost before many others know about it. As a result, those experiencing the loss are often left coping alone.

Alternatively, the bereaved may have to tolerate their deeply private ordeal being known publicly. With a stillbirth, colleagues may have last seen their coworker late in pregnancy, perhaps at a baby shower. In these situations, the bereaved may not know what to say to their colleagues, and colleagues are frequently unsure how to behave around the bereaved.

Returning to Work 

Support from others is one of the most important factors helping bereaved parents to cope and has a major impact on how they experience returning to work, and to their lives, after pregnancy loss. As a mother who lost her baby explained in research conducted by SANDS (a British stillbirth and neonatal death charity), “The thought of going back to work was actually worse than being there. It did feel strange at first but everyone was so warm and welcoming and this really helped me to settle back in.”

As with any bereavement, people who have had a pregnancy loss differ in how soon they feel able, want, or need to return to work. There will be differences in how individuals are affected physically and emotionally, and in how the loss affects their perspective on work. Some may find it helpful to get back into their old routines and find work a helpful distraction. Others will be unable to carry out their job tasks and feel daunted at the prospect of being around other people who can’t understand what they have been through. Many simply must return to work for financial reasons.

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