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Introduction to this document

Paternity rights following loss of pregnancy letter

Where an employee’s wife or partner suffers either a miscarriage or a stillbirth, only if their wife or partner was more than 24 weeks’ pregnant will the employee be eligible for paternity leave. Send our letter to advise your employee of their entitlements to paternity and other leave, such as the statutory rights to parental bereavement leave and pay and time off for dependants.

Miscarriage

The husband or partner of a woman who has a miscarriage before the end of the 24th week of their pregnancy won’t be entitled to either paternity leave or statutory paternity pay (SPP). In those circumstances, the employee may alternatively be able to take unpaid time off for dependants or apply to take some of their paid annual leave entitlement. If you provide compassionate leave as a discretionary benefit, that may also be available to them. Time off to care for dependants is simply the time off that is necessary for the employee to provide assistance to their wife or partner in unexpected or emergency situations and so this will only be a couple of days at most. It’s also unpaid.

Stillbirth

Where the employee’s wife or partner gives birth to a stillborn child at any time after more than 24 weeks’ pregnancy, the employee is still entitled to take up to two weeks’ paternity leave and be paid SPP (provided they’re otherwise eligible to receive it). The same applies where the baby dies after birth. However, there’s one key change in either of these circumstances – the employee remains entitled to any period of paternity leave that they’ve already properly notified but otherwise they must take any further period of paternity leave within eight weeks of the end of the week during which the stillbirth or baby’s death occurred. Where a notice of paternity leave has been given but the leave hasn’t yet started, it will still begin on the date they notified to you, which could, in any event, be the date of (still)birth if that’s what they originally chose as their start date. However, if they chose a different date, it’s likely to be the case that they now wish to bring forward their start date to enable them to start their paternity leave immediately. Normally they’d have to give 28 days’ notice of a revised start date, but there’s an exception where it wasn’t reasonably practicable for an employee to give 28 days’ notice of the change, in which case they need to give notice as soon as it is reasonably practicable for them to do so. This exception will apply in the case of an unexpected stillbirth. Parental bereavement leave and pay, unpaid time off for dependants and paid annual leave will also be available here.

Options

Our Paternity Rights Following Loss of Pregnancy Letter has three optional sections so you just need to select the one that applies:

the employee’s wife or partner has suffered a miscarriage before the end of the 24th week of her pregnancy; or
the employee’s wife or partner has suffered a stillbirth after the end of the 24th week and the employee had not yet started a period of paternity leave; or
the employee’s wife or partner has suffered a stillbirth after the end of the 24th week and the employee had already started a period of paternity leave.

In each case, we’ve set out the employee’s legal entitlements in respect of paternity leave and also made reference to the statutory rights to parental bereavement leave and pay, time off for dependants and paid annual leave. Plus, we’ve given you the option to grant a few days of discretionary paid compassionate leave should you wish to do so.