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On the occasion of the month of awareness on pregnancy loss and after birth, we want to bring to everyone’s attention a theme that creates great suffering every year for thousands of working women who, following the interruption of their pregnancy, cannot count on any leave. from work.
In this short interview, Dr. Camilla Fasciolo, a lawyer, clarifies what are the rights in the event of abortion and perinatal death to date in our country.
Leave: who is entitled?
“The Consolidated Law on the subject (Legislative Decree 151/2001) considers the termination of pregnancy, whether spontaneous or voluntary , to all intents and purposes a disease .”
Leave and mothers
“If the abortion occurs before 180 days of gestation, you will only be entitled to sick leave (and related allowance).” (The duration of this leave varies between 7 and 14 days and is managed with your general practitioner)
If, on the other hand, it occurs more than 180 days after the start of the pregnancy, the Consolidated Law considers it a birth and grants maternity leave with the corresponding benefits: three months following the birth, plus any unused pre-birth leave days, for a total of five months, as a general rule.
For freelancers or self-employed workers, it is expected with the same requirements if registered with INPS, while if registered with private funds it depends on the individual body (for example, one already provides for it from the third month, another only if it occurs between the third and sixth month).
Leave and fathers
A father who is an employee—whether in the private or public sector—is entitled to ten days of mandatory paternity leave even in the event of perinatal death: according to the INPS (Circular No. 122 of October 27, 2022), this applies when a child is stillborn on or after the first day of the 28th week of gestation or dies within the first twenty-eight days of life.
In conclusion
“Even today, in the year 2021, there is no specific form of compensation for those who find themselves losing or terminating a pregnancy.”
In thanking Attorney Fasciolo for answering our questions, I would like to add a reflection of my own as a mental health professional and human rights activist: We are well aware that in other, more advanced countries, the law provides for a form of leave starting at the 20th week (and not, as is the case here, on the 180th day).
We also know that many working mothers engaged in childcare services and perinatal care do not receive any kind of support, linked to the particularity of their work (I am thinking for example of nursery school teachers, primary school teachers, midwives, neonatologists, pediatricians, gynecologists, pediatricians, psychomotor therapists, etc.).
Over the years, we have received numerous accounts from women who were forced to return to work immediately“because, after all, nothing really happened to you,” or from others who, in order to stay home for a couple more weeks, had no choice but to be diagnosed with reactive depression.
Mourning after an abortion is not a reactive depression, but our state unfortunately does not recognize it for what it is in reality: a traumatic event that affects the body and mind and needs time to be faced and allow those who suffer it. to go back to a similar routine as before the loss.
For two legislatures, before the pandemic, we proposed extending at least one month of leave starting from the twentieth week: this would allow the first month to pass, the one in which the body is convalescing, without forcing or external pressure. Unfortunately, coverage was never found.
I hope that in the near future our country will also lower the definition of stillbirth to at least 22 weeks, as recommended by the WHO, thus guaranteeing approximately 1000 more women each year the corresponding allowance.
With this step done, I hope there is room left to extend coverage to at least the twentieth week.
The first 40 days after bereavement are very heavy from a psycho-physical point of view.
Protecting women in those 40 days would allow them to reduce the risk of medium and long-term complications, especially of the anxious and depressive type, with a considerable saving in terms of working days lost in the future.
