Maternity rights following baby’s death letter

Where an employee’s baby dies during their maternity leave, you can send our letter.

Baby loss

In rare cases, a baby may be born alive but then may subsequently die during the employee’s absence on maternity leave. This could be for various reasons, include that the baby was born early or with some form of terminal illness or incurable medical condition or it might be for a reason entirely unrelated to the birth, such as later catching a virus. Regardless of the baby’s death or the reason for it, the employee will remain entitled to take their full period of one year’s maternity leave and be paid statutory maternity pay (SMP) (provided they’re otherwise eligible to receive SMP). As the employee will already be absent on maternity leave in this situation, because at the latest that would have automatically started on the day after the date of birth, they will simply remain on maternity leave and continue to be paid SMP. This is effectively what our Maternity Rights Following Baby’s Death Letter says. Don’t send our letter too quickly after the death though; you need to be sensitive to the employee’s situation. You might want to at least send them a sympathy card and/or phone them first.

Return to work

Some employees who have suffered the loss of a baby won’t want to be absent from work for a year on maternity leave but will want to take steps to return to work once the baby’s funeral has taken place. If an employee wants to return to work earlier than the end of their maternity leave, they can do so but they need to give you at least eight weeks’ advance notice of their intended early return date, so our letter refers to that possibility too. This notice need not be in writing. You can waive this notice requirement though and let the employee return to work on an even earlier date if that suits the needs of your business.

Parental bereavement leave

On returning from maternity leave, the employee is also likely to be entitled to parental bereavement leave of one week, two consecutive weeks or two separate weeks, to be taken within the period of 56 weeks beginning with the date of the baby’s death - see our Parental Bereavement Leave Policy. If you offer a counselling service for staff, it might also be worth referring the employee to that.