CPS Worker Petitions for Paid Bereavement Leave for Women Who Miscarry

May Saengpraseuth Alirad and her husband found out they were expecting on Jan. 24, but they never got to meet the daughter they named Angel.

“I dreamed about her a couple weeks before I was pregnant,” said Saengtraseuth Alirad.

Saengpraseuth Alirad miscarried Angel at eight weeks pregnancy in February of this year.

“My water broke and I had cramps (and) contractions,” Saengtraseuth Alirad said. “Chunks of my placenta was leaving my body…I was crying since Feb. 11 – I had been crying everyday.”

Saengpraseuth Alirad is a social worker for Chicago Public Schools, a job she’s held for 13 years.

After miscarrying, she went right back to work, but the pain and trauma was too much.

“I had to go into closet,” she said. “I cried at work- in between meetings. I needed to take time off to grieve my child and process trauma… I literally gave birth in the toilet."

She said she inquired with Human Resources and her immediate manager about paid bereavement leave, which is typically 10 days.

She says she was denied.

“This person was real to me,” she said. “For them to invalidate that, something was not right.”

May says she had to take time off to heal, but she had to use a variety of ways to do so, taking three weeks off--using short-term disability and two weeks of unpaid leave.

During that time, she started a petition on Change.org calling for paid bereavement leave after pregnancy loss.

“I think often time swomen, when they lose a baby, that loss is not even acknowledged,” she said.

CPS said in a statement it "values its dedicated employees and offers competitive wages and benefits, including bereavement time for the loss of loved ones."

"While our bereavement policy does not directly address miscarriages, many employees use a variety of options available to them under our current CPS benefit package to take time off during difficult circumstances," the district said. "As always, CPS strives to treat our colleagues with compassion and ensure they have the resources available."

Sen. Tammy Duckworth is sponsoring federal legislation to allow Americans to receive paid leave time to process and address their own health needs and the health needs of their partners during the period following a pregnancy loss, an unsuccessful round of intrauterine insemination or of an assisted reproductive technology procedure, a failed adoption arrangement, a failed surrogacy arrangement, or a diagnosis or event that impacts pregnancy or fertility and more.

Here’s a link to the proposed legislation.