Introduction Low-income and-middle-income countries (LMICs) contribute to the maximum burden of stillbirth globally, which affects parents in various tangible and intangible ways, emphasising the need for having a provision of parental leave to recover from the physical and mental/emotional drain. In response to this, we conducted a scoping review with the objective of identifying provision of leave within maternity benefit policies after stillbirth in LMICs.
Methodology The study is conducted in accordance with Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines, using the population, concept and context framework to define the research questions. The International Labour Organization (ILO) global care policy portal and documents from selected international United Nations (UN) organisations were reviewed to assess the inclusion of stillbirth within maternity leave policies.
Additionally, country-specific maternity leave policies were retrieved from official government sources for LMICs. Fuerther, databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and ProQuest were searched for studies from LMICs to identify literature with recommendations around leave policy.
Study selection and data extraction were conducted by two independent reviewers with arbitration by a third reviewer.
BMJ Open published a clinical update in Research Highlights on 24 Jun 2026.
The item focuses on Leave policy after stillbirth in LMICs: how much are we thinking about bereaved mothers?
A scoping review.
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