New year, new disappointments. Since January 1, 2024, it has been possible for women who have experienced a miscarriage to take sick leave without loss of pay. This “specific” work stoppage, prescribed by a healthcare professional, will be exempt from the waiting period usually applied for the payment of daily allowances. A welcome step forward in a society that still struggles to talk openly about miscarriage.
However, 200,000 French women are victims each year of a natural termination of pregnancy occurring before the third month, according to the site Public Life, which feminist associations and health professionals prefer to describe as “spontaneous termination of pregnancy”. This ordeal can have serious consequences on the physical and psychological health of women, but also on the couple, having pushed deputies to legislate on the subject.
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Problem: spontaneous termination of pregnancy is the only reason allowing women to benefit from sick leave without waiting days, informing the employer of the reasons for the leave. Speaking to “l’Obs”, Sandra Lorenzo, author of the book “A miscarriage like the others” (First Edition, 2022) and co-founder of the collective Fausse Couche, true experience, discusses this ruling which is supposed to make life easier for women but which does not ‘East ” not a revolution ».
What does this new law, applied since January 1, allow for women who have suffered miscarriage?
This law, adopted in the summer of 2023, allows future parents to have the right to psychological assistance, the lifting of waiting days for women and access to a care pathway, on which there is still little information but which will apply on September 1, 2024. It was at the beginning of 2023 that a bill, carried by MP Sandrine Josso, intended to put in place psychological assistance for the woman and for the co-parent, in the event of of miscarriage. On March 8, in an interview with “Elle”, former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that she was adding the lifting of waiting days to this law.
But it’s not a revolution. The revolution is being able to talk about miscarriage in the National Assembly and the Senate. It is to have brought the problem of miscarriage into existence from a political point of view. Lifting the waiting days is not a step forward but an upgrade. It was a huge injustice to force women to choose between three days less pay and the time it would take to recover from a miscarriage. It is a measure of fairness.
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Does this law aim to protect women’s health?
Miscarriage is not traumatic for all women, nor for all couples. But it’s a test for the body. It involves bleeding, uterine contractions. Then, depending on the progress of the pregnancy and the couple’s parenthood plan, this can have very significant psychological repercussions.
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Studies show that women who experience it are more likely to develop depressive symptoms and that the couple is more likely to separate. But there are also couples and women who overcome this ordeal and who do not need help.
Nor should we establish an obligation to trauma. But it is necessary to be physically stopped to recover. The end of a pregnancy has physical consequences that make it impossible to continue working.
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Why is this sick leave without loss of salary ultimately disappointing?
Health insurance communicated on January 4, 2024 to warn women that if they took time off work to recover from a miscarriage, they risked their employer being able to deduce that they had been pregnant. Miscarriage is the only case, in the legislation, which gives the right to a work stoppage without waiting days. If a woman uses it, the employer understands that she has experienced a miscarriage.
“In our society, a woman who experiences a miscarriage is a woman who takes her own life”
However, we know that a woman who reveals that she is in a parenthood project, that she wants to be pregnant, to take maternity leave and to be absent for several months, she is putting herself in danger, her and her career. Several studies on pregnancy in the workplace prove this.
To preserve their careers, will women avoid having this stop prescribed?
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It would be nice to be able to talk freely about these issues with the employer, if desired. But in reality, it is dangerous. It is for this reason that health insurance, by publishing these details, wanted to do the right thing and warn that it is perhaps better to remain discreet about the reasons for stopping and take it with the waiting days. . These are the consequences of the application of the law, it is unthinkable. This was not done voluntarily by the legislators, but it discredits this “advance”.
A lot of women will play it safe and lose three days of salary to have a work stoppage, or even continue to work. But not stopping when you experience a miscarriage has health and psychological consequences. We are more likely to be traumatized if we experience a miscarriage at work rather than at home.
What changes can women who have suffered a miscarriage hope to achieve?
I don’t know how it will be possible to get around this problem of work stoppage and health insurance. This is such a huge failure that there must inevitably be solutions that can be found quickly.
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Then there is the problem of the psychological support offered to women and couples. They will have to go through the MonParcoursPsy platform. However, a large majority of psychologists do not recognize themselves in it and do not want to participate in it. It’s another announcement effect, something good on paper but which, in reality, risks not bearing fruit. We must offer couples who need it real psychological support. I also expect a lot from the care pathway [mis en place dès septembre 2024, NDLR] in case of miscarriage.
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What does your collective recommend on this issue?
The collective has formulated a list of measures that would allow better care, ranging from a mention in SVT reproduction courses that one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage to a poster campaign in maternity wards, practices medical advice from gynecologists and midwives on this subject. These are not complicated measures and would be a game-changer. Without trivializing it, miscarriage remains very common. And knowing it means understanding it better, accepting it and being able to be better cared for.
2024-01-15 20:02:14
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