Pregnancy and stress at work

[Lilybow]

I'm in my second trimester with my rainbow baby and everything is looking well. My work is extremely stressful, granted its not an active job so it is an office job but the workload is unmanageable, the demand is non stop and pressure is horrible. It doesn't matter how much I say this to supervisors and manager, it doesn't change so speaking to my manager won't help or change anything now.

Everyone knows it's bad, but nothing is done because we have to get on with it. We have a high turnover with great people leaving because they cannot cope with the stress.

I'm now getting so stressed I'm crying, I dread starting work and the demand is making me so negative. I'm also worried now if this might impact on my baby, and still sad about my previous miscarriage so don't want to risk anything happening to baby.

I can't leave the company, I'm considering going to my GP and getting signed off with stress but that also makes me feel guilty as then my work would need doing.

Guess I'm just ranting, what would you do?

I’m sorry that you are feeling this way. I’m 24 weeks pg now and have a high pressure job with long hours and lots of deadlines, but I guess I’m lucky because I enjoy it and don’t tend to get too stressed. I can empathise to an extent though as my life has been rather stressful in general lately.

I went into triage a couple of weeks ago with what I perceived as reduced movements and the midwife who happened to be on shift at the time was a perinatal mental health specialist, I was so lucky to see her and even after just a 15 min chat I felt a lot better. Maybe see if your hospital has a mental health specialist you can see? Or they may have their own in house mental health team?

I am on antidepressants long term anyway but this midwife advised that I spoke to my GP about increasing them as the extra blood supply during pregnancy dilutes them. Even if you don’t want to take any medication I think it would be worth a chat with your GP, but speak to your midwife first.

It doesn’t sound like work is going to get any better unfortunately and I don’t think signing yourself off is the answer, but speaking to a midwife, who has experience of pregnant women’s anxiety, should really help to reassure you.

Also it goes without saying but I hope you have a supportive partner, and time to get some exercise and relax a bit too

I would state that you are stressed and thinking of asking your GP to sign you off to your manager if they still don't change things to make it more manageable then just go ahead and speak to your GP, you and your baby are all that matters right now