Anyone finishing work at 28 weeks?!!

[topmum1]

I am 26 weeks pregnant and a teacher. I have heard rumours of other schools asking pregnant teachers to finish work or work from home once they hit 28 weeks due to covid risks. Has anyone got any experience of this? My school have said nothing but I know of another school in the area (East Yorkshire) that has asked teachers to work virtually/at home once they hit 28 weeks. Now feeling concerned!

@LittleRa

I’m currently 20 weeks, and am a primary school teacher. I’ll be 28 weeks around Christmas. I keep reading stuff on forums and Facebook about teachers WFH from 28 weeks but have never seen anything definitive that I could take to my SLT. I do have a risk assessment but it’s pretty meh and I think they’d be quite shocked if I went and said I should WFH! I really wouldn’t see it going down well! I have asked my midwife at 12 and 16 week appointments but she said the advice is carry on as normal. I keep getting people saying to me “oh and can’t you WFH from 28 weeks?” and i’m like “says who?!” And “do you want to be the one to tell my Head that?!” I am under a consultant due to low birth weight last time and low Papp-a (puts you more at risk of developing pre-eclampsia) so will be having growth scans at 28, 32 and 36 weeks so I suppose I’ll see if I get any different advice then.

Thalia is exactly how I felt. People, including my midwife were like ‘you really should be working from home you know’. As you said, all the advice is really windy washy and I couldn’t find anything concrete to support this. I didn’t want to rock the boat at work, and I also didn’t want to let my department down in these charities times through. I must admit, it made me feel like a bad mum though, even before bump has been born.

I was relieved when the decision was taken out of my hands at my low PAPP-A growth scan at 32 weeks. The consultant gave me the choice of admin to work from home or being signed off! I felt at least my working from home I was still able to support my department, so that’s what we did.

It's so hard with the lack of clear guidance. I'm 'lucky' in that I had a consultant appointment a few weeks ago due to complications in last pregnancy. She told me I should be working from home, I told my head and that was it, no questions asked.

To all those worrying about evidence to take to your heads, I would explain your concerns to your midwife/consultant at next appointment and ask them to write a letter if necessary saying you need to be at home. My consultant made it very clear that people past 28 weeks take much longer to recover from covid.

I'm a primary school teacher. I'm 28 weeks and still working. I'm in a low risk, tier 1 area, so will continue working until I'm told otherwise. I hate WFH, so am happy to continue teaching and just make sure I'm being as safe as I can be.

I am a secondary school teacher and have just started mat leave. I was teaching up until I was 37 weeks. Unfortunately there is no clear guidance, only a risk assessment needs to be carried out. If you don't feel safe it might be best to just take early maternity.

I'm now feeling quite anxious seeing the guidance has been removed. I told my head what my consultant had said a few weeks ago. Last week they were interviewing for my mat cover replacement (with a start date of 3 months early). Am now worried they're going to back track. From the rcog's statement it appears they've only removed the guidance as it's not appropriate to have blanket advice for the whole country at the moment. This worries me as although I'm only in tier 1 currently, I certainly don't feel my risk is any less than it was a couple of weeks back!

@bumblingalonghappily I feel the same. It’s the not knowing what will be the plan that is making me so worried. With zero chance of social distancing I just don’t see what else we can do!

I'm being medically suspended from 28 weeks and unfortunately can't really do much from home!

Who decided about this? How did it come about?

That was in reply to @ejs11

Hi @LittleRa, I'm a mental health nurse so it went through my trust's occupational health x

I suppose they can have me being useful from home working on loads of things or getting signed off sick and doing no work at all on full pay?

@ejs11

Hi *@LittleRa*, I'm a mental health nurse so it went through my trust's occupational health x

Thanks for the reply Hope all goes well with the rest of your pregnancy and arrival of baby!

@LittleRa Thankyou! All the best to you too x

I’m an EYFS teacher and will be out of the classroom after Christmas, as that’s when I will be 28 weeks. The guidance doesn’t say I have to but I’m in a tier 3 area and we’ve had a few cases before half term so my head has decided that she doesn’t want me in the classroom after 28 weeks. I also have an SLT and TLR role so will be doing lots of bits for that when I come out of the classroom. I will also continue to be involved with PPA etc with the rest of my team.

The guidance isn’t helpful at all and I can’t understand why it got changed to make it less clear and less safe when cases were rising again!