Advice with sick leave from work during pregnancy

[snowchick1977]

Wondering if anyone can help/advise?

Basically, i am 30 weeks pregnant and my doctor has advised me to self cert myself from work this week due to my blood pressure.

I have 4 weeks annual leave left to take, 2 weeks of which I have booked for after this period of self-cert sickness. So next 2 weeks as holiday.

My query is that my doctor advised that I may be signed off sick for the rest of my pregnancy after these 2 weeks holiday, due to history of pre-eclampsia and premature birth. i have to go and see him towards the end of these 2 weeks holiday.

I know that my company can automatically kick in my maternity leave 4 weeks prior to my due date if I am signed off sick but will I lose my other 2 weeks holiday now as Ill be off sick probably until the baby comes?

Also, if the baby comes, say 6 weeks early and I am still signed off sick until "x" date, will my maternity leave actually kick in from when baby is born....ie if your due date is say 10th october and you have been signed off sick, so effectively your sick leave automatically kicks in on 10th september regardless, but baby comes 28the august instead, would your maternity pay kick in from 10th september or 28th august.

Sorry for the long post!

I don't think you should lose annual leave if you haven't had chance to take it due to sickness/ mat leave. You should be able to tag it on to the end of your mat leave at the very least. Dome companies will even offer to pay you for it instead.

Sorry and yes I think mat leave automatically starts the day your baby arrives.

Ask your HR for peace of mind.

You don't have to take annual leave if you are sick. Yes, your ML can be triggered at 36 weeks if you are signed off, but you are not obliged to start it before then or use annual leave if you are off sick before this point (although HR may try to persuade you otherwise!)

I ended up in hospital at 29 weeks, and had several long conversations with HR, who tried to persuade me to start ML early and/or use up my annual leave. I didn't want to do this, which would have meant once my sick leave allowance ran out, I would have been on statutory sick pay for a few weeks - but I felt that was preferable to missing out on being paid for annual leave not taken further down the line.

In the end, DS arrived at 31+5 and ML started then anyway!

Your mat leave will start on the date the baby is born if it comes early, or on your due date, unless you have agreed to start your mat leave before then.

When will your 2 weeks sick and 2 weeks leave take you to? As far as I know if you have pregnancy related sickness in the last 4 weeks you must start your maternity leave, rather than take sick leave.

Regarding your other 2 weeks annual leave - when does your leave year run to and can you carry over any leave to next year? Mine for example runs to December 31st so in your situation I would be allowed to carry over 5 days but would lose the other 5 due to my work guidelines.

Does that make sense? Can you check your leave policy with HR?