Maternity protection will also apply to miscarriages in the future

Women who suffer a miscarriage from the 13th week of pregnancy are entitled to maternity protection in the future. The Bundestag unanimously adopted a corresponding law in the late evening. But what does that mean specifically? And how many women are affected? Here are the most important questions and answers.

The Maternity Protection Act protects the woman, especially in time, immediately before and after the delivery of a child. The protection periods basically start six weeks before childbirth and usually end eight weeks later. During this time, women generally let their professional activity rest. During the protective periods, women are entitled to maternity benefits that replace full wages before pregnancy.

From a medical point of view, the early end of a pregnancy up to the 24th week of pregnancy is a miscarriage. It is a drastic experience for many affected people. Women who suffer a miscarriage are usually dependent on the fact that she wrote your doctor or her doctor if you have the need to recover from experience. So far, neither a maternity protection period nor benefits under the Maternity Protection Act have been provided for in the event of miscarriage.

These currently only apply in the event that a woman loses her child from the 24th week of pregnancy. That should change with the new law. The family policy spokeswoman for the Union faction, Silvia Breher, speaks of an “important women’s policy milestone”. A woman who has born her child silently no longer has to try to get a sick leave in the future. You get “a shelter in order to be able to process this difficult loss,” said Breher.

The new law provides for a graduation – that is, the further pregnancy has progressed, the longer the maternity protection period is in the event of miscarriage. In the event of a miscarriage from the 13th week, maternity leave is planned for two weeks, from the 17th week of pregnancy for six weeks. If it does not occur until the 20th week of pregnancy, i.e. in a very advanced pregnancy stage, for miscarriage, then women can take a professional pause for eight weeks in the future. The entitlement to maternity benefits should also be expanded on miscarriages from the 13th week. The duration of reference depends on the aforementioned relay periods.

The new regulation also applies to women who are self -employed and insured by law. According to the Union faction, which brings the draft into the parliament, this affects 75 to 80 percent of all independent women. Soldings will also be able to rely on a maternity protection period in the event of a miscarriage from the 13th week of pregnancy. However, the self -employed who are privately insured are excluded. In a motion for a resolution by Union, the SPD and the Greens, which is available to the news agency dpa, the upcoming federal government is asked to get a change for this group. There it says: “Even self -employed women who are privately insured privately should have enough time to recover after a miscarriage. For these women, a sustainable and practical solution must be found promptly in a more comprehensive parliamentary consulting process.”

No. If a woman expressly agreed to work despite the miscarriage from the 13th week and not want to take advantage of the new maternity protection period, then this is possible according to the draft law. Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) emphasized that the new regulation strengthens the self -determination of women.

After the evening approval of the Bundestag, the regulations come into force on June 1 of this year. The law does not require approval from the Federal Council.

How many women would affect the new regulation annually is unclear. According to the Family Ministry, there are no number of women who have used maternity protection in recent years, nor are there official statistics on the number of women who have miscarriage. The green family politician Franziska Krumwiede-Steiner, like other experts in the field, assumes that every third woman in Germany is affected by miscarriage. With reference to research by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT), the Ministry of Family estimates that around 90,000 miscarriages take place annually. Around 6,000 miscarriages occurred between the 13th and 24th week of pregnancy. Most of the miscarriages, 84,000, suffer women up to the 12th week of pregnancy. No claims for maternity protection is provided for in these cases.