Emily Doring is no stranger to perinatal grief. Having suffered two miscarriages in the past, she knows how difficult it can be.
“There’s no right way to grieve. There’s no wrong way to grieve,” she said. “I was so encompassed with that grief that, really, I was going through the motions of functioning, but I really wasn’t functioning.”
Doring, director of the Western New York Perinatal Bereavement Network, is attuned to the physical and emotional impact a reproductive loss can have on families. That includes going back to work early in the grieving process.
A New York State Senate bill would mandate paid family leave for those grieving such a loss.
“We are working aggressively through this budget process to include benefits and relief for women and families that suffer the loss of a stillborn child or neonatal loss,” said State Sen. Tim Kennedy of Buffalo, who sponsored the legislation in the upper chamber with fellow Democratic Sens. Jeremy A. Cooney of Rochester and Rachel May of the Syracuse region.
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The legislation seeks to amend workers’ compensation law by allowing families suffering any reproductive loss to qualify for paid family leave in the wake of any pregnancy outcome or reproductive loss.
One in four pregnancies ends in loss, including one in every 160 births to stillbirth. There were 21,000 stillbirths in the United States in 2020, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last year, the regional bereavement network assisted 173 new families, along with others they continue to support, Doring said.
The bill passed the Senate unanimously in 2022, Kennedy said.
It had “overwhelming support in the Assembly,” but didn’t come up for a floor vote, he said, “which is why this bill remains a priority for me, whether that’s through the passage of this bill or in this budget.”
The state budget is overdue. State legislative leaders indicated late in the weekend that they were close to finalizing a new 2024-25 spending plan.
California created a new leave of absence effective Jan. 1 that requires private and public employers with five or more workers to grant up to five days of related leave.
“It’s something that New York State should look to emulate,” Kennedy said. “Any prenatal loss is worthy of consideration of relief, given the fact that today, there is there is no support under state law.”