Trigger warning: this article discusses baby loss.

My wife and I are expecting a baby in the next couple of weeks and for her, at least, the pregnancy hasn’t been fun.

First she had to deal with the morning sickness, then two months of pelvic pain, and now she’s so uncomfortable she can’t sleep.

Despite that, we’ve set up the nursery, deliberated names, and are taking bets on whether this time around I really will faint in the delivery room.

Juliette and her partner were this far along – the same number of weeks – when they lost their daughter.

The pregnancy had been uncomplicated. But at 36 weeks her husband, having informed his employer of his plan to take paternity leave, was laid off.

The stress, Juliette told me, was immense. Two weeks later her placenta stopped functioning and while they will never know for sure, she believes it was the fear and anxiety caused by the redundancy that led to the tragedy.

I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for them.

Under UK law any employed adult taking maternity leave, shared parental leave, or adoption leave receives 18 months protection from redundancy.

While flawed (research from Pregnant Then Screwed shows that an appalling 74,000 mothers still lose their jobs each year for having a child), these protections are absolutely vital – and yet they do not extend to the 200,000 men and non-birthing parents who take paternity leave each year.

I’ve heard from dozens and dozens of dads and their partners, sharing stories of when non-birthing parents have been laid off just before or even during their paternity leave.

One guy was sitting on the sofa at 4pm in the afternoon with his two-day old baby naked on his chest while his wife slept. He looked down at his phone, saw a text from his boss, and opened it to learn that he’d been sacked.

We estimate 3,700 fathers a year lose their jobs for taking paternity leave and believe that this very real risk deters fathers and non-birthing parents from taking the UK’s paternity leave – measly as it is.

In polling conducted for The Dad Shift by More In Common, we found 56% of the public, rising to 65% of men, believe “if fathers take significant parental leave after the birth of their child there is a risk this will impact their careers and could even cause them to lose their jobs”. 

The Employment Rights Bill is a perfect opportunity for Labour to prove it’s on the side of working dads and close this loophole for good.

Lola McEvoy, MP for Darlington, said in the Chamber: “My generation and those younger than me are the keenest yet for more family time, but our primary concern has got to be paying the bills.

“The rate of paternity leave, the huge swathes of discrimination against returning mothers, and the lack of protections mean dads can’t even take what they’re entitled to, and we’ve got to change that.”

And she’s right. That many dads aren’t even able to afford to take a measly two weeks off work when their child is born is bad enough, losing a job on top of it just isn’t something anyone should have to deal with.

If we’re going to promote more healthy gender-balanced parenting in the UK we can’t have dads falling at the first hurdle – we need to give fathers a chance to do their bit. 

George Gabriel is co-founder of The Dad Shift, a group of men, dads and co-parents campaigning for better paternity leave in the UK.

Help and support:

• Sands works to support anyone affected by the death of a baby.
• Tommy’s fund research into miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth, and provide pregnancy health information to parents.
• Saying Goodbye offers support for anyone who has suffered the loss of a baby during pregnancy, at birth or in infancy.