Pregnancy and work with covid and lockdown

[Kimmy1537]

I am 5 weeks +3 days pregnant and I was going to keep my pregnancy secret until 12 weeks. However with Covid and the new national lock down I was wondering if I should tell work as we are classed as an essential business. What are peoples thoughts?

I chose to tell my work when I was 7 weeks as I work in the NHS onto a ward that has had covid positive patients, so felt I needed to tell my manager so that a risk assessment could be put into place. Having said that I'm close to my team and colleagues so if anything had gone wrong in the first trimester I would have felt safe with them knowing.

Thank you for your reply I think I may hold off a little longer before telling them 🙈 I have an 8 week scan booked 24th so may tell them then

@Kimmy1537 this may not be hugely helpful but when I have found out I'm pregnant in the past I always think 'would I tell them if something goes wrong?' If so you may as well tell. My personal opinion of course I've just never been able to keep my mouth shut until the 12th week.

Congratulations by the way 💐

Personally I'd tell them. Back in March I found out I was pregnant on the Sunday (2-3 weeks) told our safeguarding officer on the Monday morning (I work in adult education) and said to him I was only letting him know because there was no provision and I wasn't sure what to do. Monday night the news announced pregnant women were in the clinically vulnerable category so he emailed me and said I wasn't to go back in at all (I did the next day just because I needed all my resources for online teaching and we also had a team meeting about everything). From the Wednesday i wfh throughout until maternity leave. The RCOG have guidance on their website that states anyone 28 weeks or more is more at risk, and the last time I checked the nhs website said pregnant women were also high risk

www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/people-at-higher-risk/pregnancy-and-coronavirus/

I’m 20 weeks and still not said anything to work yet (also classed as essential), think I will say something next week.

Thank you so much for your help guys! I really appreciate it

Technically you're expected to go in until 28th week. But depends on your work place, how much they value you and the state of their finances...

I told mine at 9 weeks and they were immediately suggesting I work from home.

For context, they historically have hated anyone wishing from home despite us all being able to work perfectly remotely.

As such, tell them!

*working from home that was meant to say. Not wishing!

Yes I think I will tell them as my anxiety is doing overtime