April 25, 2022
For Taylor Watkins, two days at home after her second miscarriage was not enough time for her to recover and then return to work.
“[The] miscarriage was life shattering; I think I cried every day for a month straight and it was the hardest thing I have ever been through emotionally,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s something that I will ever truly recover from to be honest.”
The seriousness of miscarriage was finally acknowledged last year when the Senate passed a change to the Fair Work Act to give parents who have a miscarriage two days of bereavement leave.
The question asked is two days enough time to recover.
Taylor says that from her experiences it is nowhere near enough.
She is backed by experts at Red Nose who say that 110,000 women have miscarriages in Australia each year.
This statistic means that one in five women who know they are pregnant will miscarry before twenty weeks, but most occur within the first twelve.
Some women have multiple miscarriages in a year and quickly run through their sick leave entitlements, so the extra two days is not adequate to recover from the physical and mental issues of miscarriage.
Taylor is among the millions of women who try to conceive very year.
Every day in Australia, 282 women experience a miscarriage, and 6 babies are stillborn.
This rate is higher than reported because most women miscarry without even knowing they are pregnant.
At only 24 years of age, she devastatingly experienced two miscarriages in the space of eight months in 2021-early 2022.
She expressed she wished she had more time to recover and process her losses.
“I was unemployed for my first miscarriage and had all the time to truly come to terms with what was happening,” she said.
It was a different story for her second miscarriage, where she had two days off and then managed to work from home for the rest of the week.
Taylor says based on how her body responded both times she would’ve loved a week.
“[A week] at minimum that would be the time needed because it gives the body time to process everything that it’s going through,” she said.
Clinical Director of Melbourne IVF and an associate professor at the University of Melbourne Dr Alex Polyakov also recommended a week’s recovery.
“If it’s a straightforward procedure and a curette is done, I think a week recovery time would probably be sufficient,” he said.
This could all depend on the procedure that was done to treat the miscarriage.
If the pregnancy was further along around 15 weeks that would mean a different recovery time to someone with a much earlier pregnancy.
“Miscarriage is an all-encompassing term, there are different circumstances for different women, for some women two days is enough, for other women they need much longer, it’s tricky to give a time frame that is appropriate for everyone,” he said.
“It’s extremely variable and depends on the woman who has had the miscarriage.”
After her first miscarriage Taylors mental health was the worst, it had ever been.
“Mentally I don’t think you ever truly recover, I noticed with my second one it was almost like being as traumatised as the first one,” she said.
Nearly 20% of women who experience a miscarriage become symptomatic for depression or anxiety, symptoms usually persist for one – three years depending on subsequent pregnancies.
Many women feel they suffer from miscarriages alone and in silence, something that will continue when they return to work after two days in the worst mental state of their lives.
A study completed by National Library of Medicine found the rates of attempted suicide increased in the women who experienced fetal loss, furthermore, the risk of attempted suicide was significantly higher in women who experienced a miscarriage.
“It has a significant impact on mental health, it’s usually very distressing but some people tolerate it better than others”, said Alex.
Taylor said having a councillor or therapist that can walk you through those emotions is crucial.
“You definitely need some sort of support system whether that be professional of from a partner,” she said.
Luckily for partners they also have access to the dedicated leave, something that Taylor thinks is a crucial part of the process.
“It is obviously harder for the women since they are going through the physical changes but having that support system there makes a big difference, and it is only fair for partners to get the same amount of time,” she said.
With both personal and professional opinions suggesting a longer recovery time Taylor wants to know how the government decided on just two days leave.
“I would like to know who was consulted in the decision-making process to come to agreement of this time frame,” she said.
Fair Work was contacted on the matter and refused to comment on matters of policy.
Employee Organisation AIG also known as Australian Industry Group supported the change to the two-day miscarriage leave change.
Stephen Smith Head of National Workplace Relations Policy at AIG said “We are often consulted by Governments about proposed legislative changes.
“We were consulted by the Government about this legislative change before the Bill was introduced into Parliament and we expressed support for it.
“If it was collectively decided that two days was not enough time for this life altering event, then it would be a matter to be discussed.
“We are always seeking to improve workplace laws to create a more productive, flexible, and fair workplace relations system.
“Our positions are informed by the regular contact that we have with our member companies. We frequently discuss policy matters with relevant Ministers and Shadow Ministers.”
Stephen said that when there are proposals from Governments and others to change workplace laws they consider those proposals on their merits, like they did in this case.
Since AIG is an employer organisation if enough businesses and workplaces stepped forward asking for more miscarriage leave for their employees, they would attempt to resolve that.
However, these matters would usually be more for the unions since they represent the workers.
AIG has close working relations with the ACTU -Australian Council of trade unions- however they do represent different interests.
ACTU was also contacted on the matter, yet they did not respond.
Working in IVF for over fifteen years and seeing over thirty women a day, Alex often diagnoses miscarriages.
Alex says that if a miscarriage happens very early after a period is due it will just look like a heavier period and some women don’t even know they have had a miscarriage.
“It’s a very difficult time for the parents, some handle it better than others.”
As Alex mentioned, the recovery time for women after having a miscarriage is very variable, for Taylor it took over two weeks to recover physically and mentally.
“My body stopped bleeding and I returned kind of back to quote unquote normal, my first cycles were pretty abnormal for the first two or three months then after that it returned to normal,” she said.
Taylor is a proud step mum and is hopeful that one day she will get her rainbow baby.
Jennifer Pittorino 