Sabadosa bills bring pregnancy loss out of shadows

Rep. Susannah Whipps, from left, Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, Sen. Jo Comerford and Rep. Natalie Blais in a legislative panel at healthcare discussion at a nursing class at Greenfield Community College in February.

Rep. Susannah Whipps, from left, Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, Sen. Jo Comerford and Rep. Natalie Blais in a legislative panel at healthcare discussion at a nursing class at Greenfield Community College in February. FILE PHOTO

By EMILEE KLEIN

Staff Writer

Published: 06-28-2024 5:02 PM

Two bills presented by Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa passed this week will support families who have experienced pregnancy loss by adding paid pregnancy loss leave to the Massachusetts Earned Sick Time Law and establishing a public information campaign for awareness and treatment options for pregnancy loss.

The two pieces of legislation are part of larger Maternal Health Omnibus bill that seeks to codify many professions and processes that occur before and after labor and delivery. The bill includes a pathway for certified professional midwives, updated regulations on birthing centers, and licensing and reimbursement for lactation consultants.

“Too often we’ve thought about maternal health as labor and delivery, but a lot happens before labor and delivery and after labor and delivery,” Sabadosa said.

The topic of pregnancy loss, also known as miscarriage or spontaneous abortion, is shrouded in silence, stigma and shame despite being a common occurrence: One in four pregnancies end in a miscarriage.

Carol McMurrich, executive director of Empty Arms, a pregnancy loss bereavement organization in Florence, said society is averse to discussing grief in general, and without social protocols around the issue of pregnancy loss, most people refrain from talking about it. Even doctors fail to mention how commonly pregnancies do not carry to term, or to explain how and why miscarriages occur.

“When you go into the pregnancy journey not knowing (pregnancy loss) is a normal part, you feel like you’re broken, you feel like something is wrong with you, and you only learn in the aftermath that it happens to a lot of people,” she said.

The first piece of new legislation combats this silence by requiring the Department of Public Health to develop and disseminate public information on pregnancy loss and evidence-based treatment options such as comprehensive mental health support and culturally responsive supports like doula care. The DPH can either distribute the resources to the public directly or work with existing organizations and support networks, like Empty Arms, to get this information in people’s hands.

“You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t happen and that’s a big change,” Sabadosa said, adding that people normally celebrate the joy and new beginnings that comes with childbirth, but “it’s much harder to talk about those sadder pieces, and this bill recognizes all of that. Its recognizing birthing people as human, which is very refreshing.”

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The second bill addresses some of this stigma as well by allowing families who have experienced pregnancy loss the option to use sick time to process and grieve. Both Sabadosa and McMurrich noted that those who lose a baby are often expected to “just get on with your life,” further invalidating the loss they feel. This attitude directly contradicts the physical and chemical state that childbirth, whether at term or before the third trimester, causes in humans.

“When your body expels the pregnancy under any circumstances, you’re flooded with chemistry that is telling you that you’re only responsibility is to take care of the baby. So you’re brain is messed up for a very long time because it’s confused that you’re not taking care of the baby,” McMurrich said.

McMurrich noted that many people she works with don’t apply for paid family leave after losing a pregnancy because the benefit requires a long, written justification and a bureaucratic process, despite the physical and emotional toll of pregnancy loss. Opening up the opportunity to use paid time off without a detailed explanation or paperwork alleviates a lot of this stress; people dealing with assisted reproduction failures or failed adoption also qualify for time off.

“By adding pregnancy loss to sick time, we’re saying if you need a couple extra days, that should be allowed,” Sabadosa said. “This is just one other layer of protection spelling it out clearly in statute so there’s no confusion.”

The legislation also charges the DPH to coordinate evidence-based research into the causes, procedures and treatment options for pregnancy loss. For the first time, the state will collect data on pregnancy loss to better understand the issue. Due to the lack of funding for pregnancy loss research, McMurrich said there is little medical professionals know about causes and treatments, and even treatments that have shown some, but not a lot of, evidence in preventing miscarriages, like monitoring a fetus’s movement by counting kicks, are discarded.

“We’re looking at race, age, medical care, socioeconomic class, pre-existing conditions, things that could point us in the direction about the types of the pregnancy lost and the types of correlating factors,” Sabadosa said.

The legislation now awaits a Senate vote. McMurrich remains hopeful that Empty Arms will be a part of future educational efforts. She has a network of parents who want to provide new parents with the resources and information they lacked during their journeys. Regardless, these bills are a win for her community.

“I never imagined 20 years ago that there would be legislation that exists, that employers would provide leave for miscarriage,” McMurrich said. Even now, “your doctor won’t even look you in the eye when you have a miscarriage,” she said. “I’m so incredibly grateful to all the people who made this happen because it’s so validating.”

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.