Pregnant women in their third trimester and Covid-19 at work

[kitty0801]

Hello,

I am a 27 week pregnant secondary school teacher with an underlying heart condition. The pandemic has been a scary time for pregnant women and we are not out of the woods yet.

I’m hoping the mumsnet community can rally together to support a government petition I have launched in support of pregnant women in their third trimester who work in public-facing roles where social distancing measures are not possible.

Data from the RCoG shows that 1 in 5 women who contract Covid-19 in their third trimester gave birth prematurely as a result, with all the risks that incurs for mother and baby. Intubation and emergency c-sections are more likely, as are babies being admitted to new-natal intensive care units. Most shocking is that women with Covid are twice are likely to have a still birth. Currently, vulnerable pregnant women are fighting an uphill battle to get vaccinated, as MP Stella Creasy has found out first hand.

At present, restrictions are lifting yet there is a new variant at large. It is currently at the discretion of the employer as to whether they choose to offer any protection to their female employees. This is wrong. Women in their third trimester should be automatically shielded on full pay; it should not be a lottery. Especially vulnerable are our key workers and those in less stable employment, who have already born the brunt of the pandemic. Lives of mothers and babies are at risk and we should not be an afterthought.

Whilst some in our society enjoy our emerging freedoms over the next few weeks, we must also consider those who are still not out of the woods until the pandemic is over.

If successful this petition would be too late for me personally but I hope will benefit other pregnant women, especially if there is another wave.

If you do feel you can support this cause, please sign below and share with friends and family. The petition is open till November 6th.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/586094

I really appreciate your support.
Thanks, EM

My work are generally very supportive but I am 31 weeks now and still teaching my year 1 class, other schools locally have sent their pregnant teachers hope and my midwife said I shouldn’t really be face to face yet here I am. I wish there had been a National guideline rather than leaving it down to individual schools. Then again, I don’t want to spend the next 2 months shielding! I’m on the fence re the vaccine.

I don't think anyone is saying you should be forced to go into work. What a lot of us are saying is that it should be on a case by case basis assessed by your midwife and employer.

For you this might be at home on full pay, or another job within the school which isn't face to face teaching of a large group. I imagine with the amount of out-of-hours/out-of-school work teachers do they'll be plenty you can do that isn't face to face teaching. So off on full pay probably isn't the best solution.

I agree. I don’t want to see a situation where pregnant women are forced to choose between a) accepting the vaccine while pregnant, b) taking maternity leave 3 months early (few people can afford to do that!) or c) carrying on putting themselves at risk by going to work. But the current position seems satisfactory to me. As I understand it, if an employer can’t provide a Covid-safe environment for a woman in her third trimester, they have to explore the possibility of WFH/redeploying her, and only if no solution can be found do they then have to look at suspending her on full pay.

I have a friend who’s a nurse, just in her third trimester and doesn’t want the vaccine while pregnant. She was worried about how it would be sorted, but her department were happy for her to work from home. Apparently they’ve shifted work around slightly and there’s more than enough admin/paperwork/emails to keep her busy at home, and it’s worked well.

If this went ahead, would pregnant women therefore be considered as “isolating” and unable to go out and about now restrictions are lifting? Or are you saying they should be signed off work but can still go to shopping centres, supermarkets, use leisure facilities etc?

@AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken this is a good point and probably like in many situations some people would take advantage! But pregnant women wfh from 28 weeks and shielding are not the same thing - Of course they would be welcome to fully shield if they wanted to (I practically am!) but we can’t pretend being on the front line in the NHS or mixing with 150 students a day in a classroom is the same as seeing 2 people in the garden on a Saturday afternoon. The idea of not being in those workplaces is to reduce risk for those people who are in high risk work places. It’s not really fair that they should have to put themselves at high risk just because they do a job like that IMO. But like I said earlier it would be good if it was a choice because some people would prefer to carry on in their normal roles.

I will sign now OP and cant believe some of these responses!
Whilst I do not judge.those of you who have decided to take a vaccine only one month ago deemed safe to take, when it is not possible to know if any long term effects physically or developmentally for the child eg autism. Or if there are blood clots with pfizer that are not reported as the media/government want you to take that one over the one with blood clots. We just do not know.

The RCOG admits they cannot be certain it is safe therefore I refuse to have it whilst pregnant but will do after baby is born.

I do not think I have to chose either a vaccine that I am not comfortable with or risk catching covid and ending up giving birth prematurely/increase risk of still birth.

I am only 21 weeks and a front line nhs worker myself, I am dreading boris announcing all social distancing lifted as I dont think my boss will then let me go off work at 28 weeks as I cannot work from home.

I also, being unvaccinated will be very careful where I go in the last 3 months, avoiding indoor places, and only going to outdoor stuff with the kids/supermarket at quieter times ect.

I feel we are being totally forgotten about by Boris. I am also not work shy, I have worked my entire life, never been off long term sick. I worked through the whole pandemic split nights whilst homeschooling, half the country was on furlough for a year or longer...A debt I will no doubt have to help pay back over the next decade when our taxes increase and they freeze public sector wages again! So I dont feel guilty if I get these extra 2 months on pay off, as mat leave kicks in at 36 weeks anyway. It's nice to see someone else who thinks like me.

I also work in a hospital with level 3 nicu- some of them are the sickest of the sick, I care for babies who are born premature I do not want that for my child.

I think that a lot of the people commenting here are quite naive. The vaccines don't offer complete protection and won't until most of the world are vaccinated. I think this is still an issue.

I don't live in the UK anymore, and, here, where I live, pregnant women (in any trimester) have had the right to work from home on full pay. If they are unable to do their jobs from home, their employers have had to pay them full pay anyway. I am also a teacher, and the receptionist at my school was at home on full pay for six months, even though she was unable to work. In this country, they class pregnant women in any trimester as vulnerable.

I also think there's a little bit of missing the point, surely. If you want to work then that is your choice, but there should be support there for women who do not want to work or who cannot work safely. Saying that you could be signed off for stress is, frankly, ridiculous. Not only might this actually damage your employment record, but it would also result in less pay, and, frankly, it's just a complete lie! Much better that pregnant women are protected in law while there is still an ongoing pandemic. The world needs babies and women have to carry them, so if we are going to continue to have babies then the vulnerability of pregnant key workers should be recognised and provided for.

who do not want to work face-to-face

@annie8ava Vaccines do not cause autism. That is a completely debunked claim on every single level. The scientist who originally said that faked all of the research, and this has since been proven many times over. There may be other reasons for not taking a vaccine, but fear of autism shouldn't be one of them.

It needs to be a choice I am a key worker and don’t want to stop work at 28 weeks the impact this would have on my mental health and wellbeing. My work have offered leave from week 28 so it’s a personal choice. Every person I see at work will have been COViD tested and I wouldn’t go onto any COViD wards.

So its a petition for women who have chosen to become pregnant in a pandemic to get full pay for 3 months so they can shield?

I dont think anyone ‘high up’ would agree to this.

Shielding is extremely hard.

If you are fully shielding, Then in ‘theory’
Your partner cant work, Your children cant go to school. No friends or family in
No-one can do anything. For 3 months?

Why? This is mad

I thought teachers in the third trimester were already allowed to work from home? They are where I am in Scotland. Madness to have a third trimester woman teaching unmasked teens imo.

@YellowPurple no. It doesnt mean full shielding no. It means if work would put you at greater risk than you do in your usual day to day life then you should say at home, so can still go to supermarket (probably presumably at quieter times).

For example, I care for 16 women and their babies each shift, I work with 3 other different colleagues each shift, I come into contact with staff on the other side of my ward, womens partners, cleaners, that's a lot of people each shift compared to who I come into contact with outside of work. Some of the women are covid neg, a lot are awaiting swab results and of course I dont know if my colleagues are asymptomatic positive or the amount of people they have been mixing with outside of work. Social distancing is impossible on a ward also.

My work have said I am likely to go off at 28 weeks though which is good. and its paid for 8 weeks not 3 months.

@YellowPurple

Shielding is extremely hard.

If you are fully shielding, Then in ‘theory’
Your partner cant work, Your children cant go to school. No friends or family in
No-one can do anything. For 3 months?

Why? This is mad

I agree.

[quote anniee8ava]@YellowPurple no. It doesnt mean full shielding no. It means if work would put you at greater risk than you do in your usual day to day life then you should say at home, so can still go to supermarket (probably presumably at quieter times).

For example, I care for 16 women and their babies each shift, I work with 3 other different colleagues each shift, I come into contact with staff on the other side of my ward, womens partners, cleaners, that's a lot of people each shift compared to who I come into contact with outside of work. Some of the women are covid neg, a lot are awaiting swab results and of course I dont know if my colleagues are asymptomatic positive or the amount of people they have been mixing with outside of work. Social distancing is impossible on a ward also.

My work have said I am likely to go off at 28 weeks though which is good. and its paid for 8 weeks not 3 months.[/quote]
But if your partner works in a place with similar public interactions, you’re still exposed to the same amount of risk aren’t you?

@anniee8ava
Ok but what about your partner and other children?

Parents / Aunts / Uncles / School friends

You cant control everyone?

Well personally my partner is half vaccinated and works from home. My mum and sisters are fully vaccinated. Plus they have had covid so hardly any risk passing it on to me. I wont be rushing to meet up with lots of people I will wait until baby is born so I can have the vaccine and outside meets are better.
Obviously you cannot erase the risk completely, but you can do what you can to minimise the risk.

Maybe its just because I've looked after two women that had covid (this was before I got pregnant) they had been to ITU and had to be delivered early, nearly died, only risk was pregnancy that I am a little more fearful of it.

[quote YellowPurple]@anniee8ava
Ok but what about your partner and other children?

Parents / Aunts / Uncles / School friends

You cant control everyone?[/quote]
Yes exactly. If you have other children who go to school, there’s no difference in exposure than being the teacher.
Unless you shield properly, which would mean your household shielding, it seems a bit pointless.

Let's say risk of exposure from your dc being in school is x.
Risk of exposure from you yourself (eg the OP) being in school working is y.
Surely the x+y risk is greater than just x? So are people saying, if you can't eliminate risk we shouldn't try to minimise it?