Any pregnant nurses/midwives/doctors/caters out there?

[HeyDW96]

Hello! Wondering if anyone is in the same-ish boat as myself with a patient facing role, pre 28 weeks gestation and currently struggling with the impact of covid on the health service or worried about the announcement today that we are again facing huge numbers of covid cases!

Are you working non clinically or continuing to work patient facing? The longer this goes on and the larger my bump gets the more I am pushed towards non patient facing!

Nurse here. Still patient facing and will be until 28 weeks when i will go in to shielding and off work as per our trust guidelines.
We haven't been too bad as we are outpatients. Suspect that is all about to change soon though.

Hi I'm a junior doctor currently 28 weeks. All along avoided contact with covid patients. When I had my first risk assessment a couple of months ago I was advised to go non-patient facing then but I wanted to continue at the time. Long story but first wave redeployment had an impact on my training. About a month ago I stopped inpatient work as we began to see more covid cases. At 28 weeks I am now not seeing any patients at all as per second risk assessment.
I am however not completely working from home as I have some work to complete on site. This was my decision though, I think if I said I didn't want to noone would have made me.
Are you being supported? The RCOG guidance is still out there but stricter precautions were archived.

I do avoid covid patients and am supported to a point, the increase in clinical activity is impacting everyone right now but we've seen a huge surge in this! I do hope they will update their guidelines soon, if pregnant workers were sent home for the first lockdown and we are now seeing this second spike is worse, I think we need a bit more protection that 'it's your choice' to work patient facing or non clinical.

It is pretty scary when you can see the cases increasing. My friend who is 2nd trimester was told to work from home from the beginning of Dec. Not just because of the patient cases but also staff cases. It seems each health board and department are making their own assessments. More clear guidance would be helpful. I'm fairly lucky that a lot of my work can be done remotely

Working in covid ward here and still at 8 weeks but need to do a risk assessment as I don't feel comfortable about thie

A&E nurse here my trust advised all pregnant women to shield and work from home late October so I have been off work since then. I don't think there's any prospect of going back until my mat leave starts so I'm starting to wonder if I'll forget how to even be a nurse now . There aren't many trusts I know of that have done this. They have a waiver for staff that want to return to work but not many people have signed it x

Icu nurse here. I’ve been off work from 22 weeks due to the icu environment with covid/ short staffing and intense shifts. Unable to work from home so my work and doctor supported me in taking some pregnancy related illness time off then switched to annual leave to cover me from December until today where I am 28 weeks and shielding kicks in

I am a doctor in a diagnostic specialty, patient-facing but very rarely confirmed covid patients.
I am only 4+5 so very early days and not comfortable with announcing my pregnancy yet - going to speak to occupational health today.

@jupeBex when you say all pregnant women were advised to screen, is that any gestation?

@usplusone when you say you avoided covid contact all along, did you tell colleagues about your pregnancy pretty early?

Thanks

@jupebex I meant shield, not screen!

@Birchtree4 I told a few of my senior colleagues at 6 weeks, as I felt I would be better protected if they knew!

It is interesting that some trusts have asked all pregnant women to have no patient contact. Although I don't work on a covid ward, covid is having an impact on the whole hospital and I am beginning to struggle. It is also likely that with cases increasing this much, we will come into contact with patient who have covid that we don't know about!

I’m a home carer and 18 weeks. We are getting weekly tested and are obviously always in PPE with clients so I feel fairly safe at the moment.

When I reach 28 weeks my company will let me work in our office instead of out with clients and any clients we have that are positive/have symptoms I’m not allowed to work with so that’s also reassuring.

Patient facing here. Will be shielding from 28 weeks but non Covid before that. No one in my Trust is allowed to work on site from 28 weeks.

Doctor in respiratory here. Patient facing with covid patients including aerosol generating until 28 weeks is rules in my trust. Only 11 weeks so not many people know. Still Debating the vaccine once I’m in 2nd trimester.

@birchtree4 when I fell pregnant cases were pretty low and I had planned not to tell people. However after a 12 week scan abnormality I ended up letting my supervisors know as I needed time off for CVS etc.
I work predominantly in the lab with outpatient work and ward attendances so I fortunately found it fairly easy to avoid seeing covid cases.
It's the unexpected cases being identified that make me nervous. Luckily I can easily socially distance when at work, it must be harder if you're ward based.

Hi lady's i posted the same in another chat I'm an odp in theatres and told manger straight away in both pregnancy's, so risk assessments can be carried out, adjustments made and referral to occ health can made, was even more important this time as I'm a high risk pregnancy due to having 1ds 12 weeks Premature.
Also find that it's easier if my collages know so they can take care of u and most guess pretty quickly
I'm currently not at work anymore due to other pregnancy issues but if I was very much doubt I would be patient facing, would be sat in the office and once 28 weeks will be at home on full pay

@Birchtree4

I am a doctor in a diagnostic specialty, patient-facing but very rarely confirmed covid patients. I am only 4+5 so very early days and not comfortable with announcing my pregnancy yet - going to speak to occupational health today.

@jupeBex when you say all pregnant women were advised to screen, is that any gestation?

@usplusone when you say you avoided covid contact all along, did you tell colleagues about your pregnancy pretty early?

Thanks

Yep for any gestation! At first it was only after 28 weeks you should shield but they advised everybody to

I’m a nurse. Work in emergency surgery so looking after covid positive patients and patients on the amber covid pathway. Only 9 weeks but had to tell work as I was vomiting all the time at at 5.5 weeks. So far I haven’t had a risk assessment despite asking. I’m still working a lot of nights, was told I would come off nights after Christmas but the next off duty has come out for Feb and have 4 weeks off nights. Not sure how to ask for the risk assessment again and I think my manager will just do it as a paper tick box exercise and nothing will change. What things should be adjusted? At the moment we only have one positive on the ward and ofcorse they are in my team. I said I have been told to avoid covid positive patients hoping someone would offer to take this patient for me but they just shrugged and said well you can’t really avoid covid. Part of me thinks they are putting me on nights so I’m out of sight out of mind. So I’m not feeling very supported at the moment at all!

I'm considering coming away from my patient facing role on the ward, I'm 19 weeks, the pressure on us all just now is ridiculous and there's very little support due to this, I'm sure my colleagues before me who didn't work during covid didn't have to deal with anything like this during pregnancy 😔 it's not nice, very worrying time and I'm surprised pregnant people haven't been asked to shield again.

We use the Covid Welsh Risk Assessment and Mitigation Template. It has a section of ideas for what to do if you are before 28 weeks but not to see Covid patients such as audit, Learning and Development support, service evaluation etc and goes into a lot of detail about the onus being on the line manager not employees to think creatively.

I'm still patient facing till 28 weeks. Community speech and language therapist. Infesting to see what's happening elsewhere, I'm in Scotland. Booked my vaccine for Thursday 😬💉 this is a good resource for those considering it drive.google.com/file/d/1amyuWed4XkO5dwyfCKmu72RzaAoNf8u-/view

@Sohe I don’t have a risk assessment either. Think I might have to refuse to work until I get one otherwise I know it will never get done. We have to agree with the risk assessment and do it with our managers so shouldn’t be a tick box exercise as you will has to sign to say you agree with everything.
I’m not usually so assertive but it’s not just us we are thinking about anymore.

@sohe I wouldn't accept that, what if that covid patient gets sick and you are left to see to them? That will then put you at risk if noone else is available at the time!

I’m hoping the guidelines will be updated due to the new lock down and strain. Particularly as pregnant women are bottom of the queue fir the vaccine yet we are clinically vulnerable and some of us work in high risk jobs. The problem is the NHS is in crisis and protecting pregnant healthcare workers does not seem to be a priority.

As far as I'm aware pregnant women have only been advised to shield after 28 weeks.
In my trust your patient facing non covid patients until 28 weeks. This has been since March. We are unplanned nursing practitioners in the community and see acutely unwell patients and we take covid swabs as part of our diagnostic service. Therefore pregnant colleagues have been advised to be office based and answering patient phone calls.
I believe in the hospital if they're working on non covid wards they work as normal as patients get tested regularly.

I'm patient facing mental health liaison ( covering a&e and all wards - covid or not). I'm 24 weeks. At 28 weeks I will be moving to office based giving on line teaching to junior doctors and A&e staff - still in the hospital and surrounded by my colleagues so I'm not sure what difference it's really going to make.
I have lots of annual leave to take so I will start my maternity leave at 34 weeks. I'm counting down the weeks.