With the rate of stillbirths now topping that of infants who die before their first birthdays, employers and society must become more empathetic to families grieving the death of a baby through stillbirth or miscarriage, says a Baylor University researcher who helped form Cradled, a Waco-based nonprofit serving bereaved families.
While infant mortality in the United States has declined by 11 percent since 2006, little progress has been made in reducing stillbirth and miscarriage rates, according to a recent report by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Research shows that approximately one in four women will experience a miscarriage, a loss before the 20th week of pregnancy, but it’s not something that we are comfortable talking about,” said Joyce Nuner, Ph.D., an associate professor of Child and Family Studies in Baylor’s Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences. “It’s a silent sorrow.”
Perinatal bereavement is minimized in the workplace, she said. A recent article by The New York Times that explored Amazon’s treatment of employees noted that workers who suffered from miscarriages said they were evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover. One mother whose child was stillborn — “the most devastating event in my life” — said she left Amazon after being told her performance would be monitored “to make sure my focus stayed on my job.”
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