This petition was submitted during the 2015–2017 Conservative government
Petition Change regulations for fathers who lose a child to stillbirth or neonatal death
Currently if a fathers child dies due to stillbirth or neonatal death they are only entitled to what their employer feels is required in terms of compassionate leave. While a mother is fully entitled and rightly so to the full maternity leave.
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I believe that the father should be entitled to take and or share the maternity leave with his partner. These are extreme circumstances and should be looked at as such. When it comes to dealing with the death of a child, your gender does not come in to it. I am writing from personal experience as my son Zachary was stillborn at 11 days overdue on April 2nd 2013.
I was treated extremely badly and inappropriately by my employer after having sick leave due to the death if my son.
This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months
Related activity
MPs debate baby loss
On Thursday 14 October, MPs debated baby loss.
You can watch the debate on Parliament TV: http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/e285a80b-db23-423f-97ea-2e312f4bb015?in=11:42:33
You can read the debate on the Hansard website: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-10-13/debates/721CDF48-A721-4408-AA94-BE694FA1E7FC/BabyLoss?utm_source=petitions
Antoinette Sandbach MP and Will Quince MP successfully applied to the Back Bench Business Committee for time to debate this issue in the House of Commons. This is one way back bench MPs can get debates.
You can watch their application for the debate on Parliament TV: http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/026fecdf-8a10-45b3-af5a-60467c6943a7?in=15:27:24
You can find out more about the Back Bench Business Committee on its website: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/backbench-business-committee/