Early maternity?? Can anyone help?

[Mrswhiskerson]

My friend who is four months pg has been taken into hospital and has had to have an emergency operation which will takes weeks to recover from

she is worried because she will not get sick pay as she had not been at her job long enough ,
is there anything she can do like take a
month early maternity or anything at all , she had been through somkuch recently and i can't spare much time due to long work hours but if there is anthing I can do to help alleviate her stress it would be great.

Also does anyone have any suggestions if how I could cheer her up ? She isn't allowed visitors at the minute but I would like to cheer her up when she gets out.
I would really appreciate any advice

i presume your in england but here in ireland you can take maternity from i think its 26 weeks onwards. check if she has that option ... however the downside is it reduces her time she has on maternity once her baby is born.

You can only start mat leave 11wks before your due date for stat mat pay, so think it is too early for that sorry. Stat sick pay maybe?

I'm not sure if you are talking about splitting up her maternity leave ie having a month off now and the rest later because don't think you can do that.

She needs to check her sick pay situation. If she hasn't been at her current job for long enough is she getting Maternity Allowance as opposed to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP).

Will she not get statutory sick pay?

When she gets out, if she's can't get about much and is off work, maybe some dvd box sets, books?

www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Moneyandworkentitlements/WorkAndFamilies/Pregnancyandmaternityrights/DG_10039631

you have to be 21 weeks pregnant to qualify for maternity leave. Hope your friend is ok.

You can take maternity leave from 29 weeks. They can't make you go on maternity if you are sick until 36 weeks.

However, if she is not getting sick pay at work then she would be better off going onto maternity pay as soon as possible at 29 weeks.

She should be entitled to statutory sick pay although of course that does not amount to very much. And it is hard to sort that sort of thing out from your hospital bed too.

It used to be from 26 weeks back in the olden days

It's definitely 29 now! That is what it says about claiming Maternity Allowance on the Direct.gov website anyway. You can be paid MA from 11 weeks before your due date.

The 21 week point is the earliest point you can get your MatB1 form to apply for Maternity Allowance or SMP and is the point when you can give your employer notice of your maternity leave. But you can't start it until 11 weeks before you are due.

As others have said she should be eligible, providing her average weekly earnings in the Eight weeks before the first day of sickness were high enough for statutory sick pay. If she has any she can legally offset aCcrued annual leave and ask to take some of the sick leave as annual leave

sorry to go off topic....but what happens if you have a baby at 25 week into the pregnancy ????

op SSP maybe the only option

If your baby is born at 25 weeks then you can put your claim in straight away. Also if you put in your application and asked to receive maternity pay from, say, 35 weeks, but the baby is born before that, then of course your maternity starts early.