Chapter 2: Invisible Grief: An Examination of Miscarriage in the Workplace

Over 70% of women with children, or in their childbearing years, are a part of today’s labor force (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). With this in mind, it is important to consider that with pregnancy comes the potential for pregnancy complications. The most common pregnancy complication is miscarriage, commonly defined as the loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week of gestation (ACOG Committee on Obstetric Practice, 2018). To gain a better insight into miscarriage and more specifically, the impact of miscarriage on women in the workplace, we explore a number of factors that impact grief response, stress, and coping in the workplace. We use the theoretical lens of the pushing on theory (POT) of maternal perinatal bereavement (Wright, 2010) and Lazarus’s (1966) transactional theory of stress to better understand the phenomenon of pregnancy loss and how it impacts work and the employer. Societal and organizational norms, job demands, resilience resources that help with coping, and work and personal outcomes are discussed. Finally, we identify future research directions and propose implications for employers and managers. We expect to enhance our understanding in miscarriage, disenfranchised and complex grief, support following loss, and other factors that can mitigate the grief process after a miscarriage.