When to tell my employer I'm pregnant.

[Horizon512]

Hoping for some validation on my decision to inform my work of my pregnancy before my 12 week scan.

With my first child I told them at 4 months. It was an office job and an easy pregnancy, that choice worked well for my situation.

My new job is in healthcare. I work reception at a GP surgery. When I'm front desk I handle patient samples and send them off in bags (urine, poo and sputum mainly. All in containers, I just bag them up) which could all be infectious. Because of this I think I need to tell my employers ASAP about my pregnancy so I can be assigned to one of the back offices.

I'm also still in my 6 month probation, I have 3 weeks left of it.

Am I making the right choice?

I wouldn’t tell them
also presumably any samples are sealed or at least they should be!
assume you wear gloves?

Would you wait until after the 12 week scan?
Most samples are sealed but some patients don't seal it properly and stuff ends up on the bags/we touch accidentally

Say nothing until your probation is over.
The infection risk is the same now as before your pregnancy. If concerned wear gloves.

Wear gloves
practise good hand washing etc
in your probation I wouldn’t be looking to rock the boat (rightly or wrongly)
once you tell your employer they will do a risk assessment but you don’t have to tell them until your matb1 form is given

I wouldn’t tell them until after probation

I don’t think you need to tell them for that reason - GP receptionist is a very low risk job in the grand scheme of things, any samples are sealed and in a bag and you can wear gloves; if they aren’t sealed, I’m pretty sure they shouldn’t be wafting/splashing around the front desk, pregnant staff or otherwise!

Telling work obviously means you get time off for the 12 week scan and booking appointments; if you have pregnancy related days off then it’s not counted against you as sickness; if you keep vomiting then people are less judgey if it’s pregnancy related than a hangover… so it might be worth telling them for those reasons.

Also if you are handling human samples that should be risk assessed regardless of your pregnancy status and there should be a protocol that accounts for any potential risk.

I would wait until you have passed your probation before telling work, especially as it’s only 3 weeks away.

As an aside- you should be wearing gloves. The staff in pathology laboratory reception who receive those samples from your courier would not be reassigned for being pregnant. Neither would the laboratory staff. They wear PPE. I think it unlikely they will move you to other duties for being pregnant so if that is your only driver for telling them early, definitely wait.

I doubt you need to be assigned a different role just because you’re pregnant. You could ask for a risk assessment and see if they’ll provide you with PPE if deemed necessary. But many many women work in healthcare jobs when pregnant. And lots of them are in jobs that cannot be changed. I myself work in healthcare treating patients. I am in contact with blood daily. (Lots of blood often all over my gloves and also splatters on my mask and visor and apron). I just wear appropriate PPE and wash my hands after every patient. It’s a very female heavy profession and I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone quitting because of being pregnant.