Pregnancy Migraines and time off work

[bojangles]

I am 15 weeks pg and have been suffering with very bad pregnancy migraines for the last 5-6 weeks. I am also an insulin dependant diabetic which is currently very difficult to control and likely to be contributing to the migraines. I work full time and I have DD age 4 and DS age 2 consequently rest is not a term I am over familiar with. My Doctor signed me off last week for a week and made it very clear to me that I should reduce my hours as essentially trying to continue as I currently am is not sustainable. I reported all of this to my employer (local authority so should be quite good with this sort of thing) and on my return to the office today I was expecting some serious dicussion about reducing my hours. This didn't happen and it was more of a pleased you are back how are you feeling - I had a headache starting again! I have now made another appoitnment with my Dr on Thursday to discuss the situation but could really do with your views on how I should handle work. I understood that you could be signed off to work reduced hours without any effect on your pay or do I need to just get tough and phone in sick or leave early sick as soon as another headache starts?

bo I am glad things are looking up for you.

And defintely take a few days off if your Dr insists whilst it gets sorted.

I prefered to go into work too. I did not want to be a sick person who could not work, as during the day for the most part I felt perfectly fine, but just felt so slack wandering into work at 9:30am looking like shite and stressed as I was down half hour before I even started. It did not help. Adjusting my hours meant that I could arrive at 10am, having had a chance to eat something that would stay down, shower and be able to work well. I often did stay until 4:30pm but the flexibilty of being able to leave at 4pm if I felt awful, without having to go find a manager, explain myself and have colleagues questioning my sporadic attendance made my working time so much more productive and I felt like I was contributing, not taking the piss.

I still can't beleive that it reducing hours would affect your pay if you use the pregnancy as a reason! My boss thought this initially, but the health & safety officer stated that this was not correct!

I hope you feel better soon and keep us posted with how it goes.

Pavlov - I totally agree with you that pregnancy is not a sickness and that an employer should adjust hours to accomodate the particular situation wherever possible. In Bojangles case I thought - and her conversation with HR has now borne this out - that whilst they couldn't contest a reduction in her hours, they certainly wouldn't pay her for full time hours when she was working reduced. Subject to the the terms of her employers sick pay policy, she would receive full pay whilst 'off sick' and thus her SMP qualifying etc is unaffected - she would be better off - in several senses! It's so frustrating isn't it - because obviously Bojangles's employer would also have been better off paying her full time and having her work part time than they are if she is off sick, they get no work from her and are still paying full time rates.
Bojangles - it sounds like you have some options with the DDA side of things so I hope they work that out for you.

NL - I totally agree with your post - I see no benefit in trying to 'help' my employer by reducing my hours as an alternative to a period of sick leave when I would then lose a large proportion of my salary, SMP, Occuaptional pay and leave entitlement. I am very much going to take my lead from the Dr tomorrow and I will report back.

What a reilef - I saw the Dr this afternoon and he was not impressed with my work and their attitude. We went throught their questions but neither of us were happy answering them as they were very oddly worded and asking for very specific information so he has signed me off for two weeks and we will review it then. He has signed me off with diabetes related problems. I feel like such a weight has been lifted and it is so great to have a supportive Dr. Now all I have to do is plan two weeks of rest and relaxation!

Thnak you to you all for your support.

That sounds good - take care of yourself and your baby

Have fun, hope the migraines go of their own accord, mine did.

glad to hear you've got a good doctor. Now TRY to relax