Consequences for having alot of time off due to bleeding in pregnancy?

[MaryPlain59]

A family member is due to have a baby in October and unfortunetly has had alot of bleeding which has led to hospital checkups and scans and she has recently had up to three weeks off (not all at once but under hospital advice when bleeding has got worse). She has been called into a meeting tomorrow when she returns to work, just a text to say her two senior managers want to see her. Does anyone know what sanctions if any the school can,or may, put in place as she is quite anxious about this now? She has been employed by this school since September but has worked for the same Borough for several years and is an Inclusion Manager.

She should not receive any sanctions! She is pregnant and so discriminate against her would be against the law. They may wish to ensure she is fit for returning to work and maybe do some risk assessments. Though for further down the line if she continues to have pregnancy related illness within 4 weeks of her EDD her maternity leave will automatically start at that point (ie she is ill week 37 and wasn't planning on starting maternity leave until week 39 - the pregnancy related illness will mean leave starts immediately iyswim).

She should not have anything to worry about. However if she is suspicious of the school/managers could she ask for a union rep to accompany her?

I spent weeks 5-24 signed off for hyperemsis and weeks 24-28 on a phased return... school were nothing but supportive.
However, I was very honest that I was pregnant with the HT and business manager (also does the HR stuff) from the outset.

As said above they probably want to do risk assessment, and maybe have informal "ok, when are you thinking of starting ML" type questions so that they can start tentatively planning their staff model - especially since if they need to hire whoever the interview may only have two weeks from now to hand in their notice in order to be available for September.

Thank you both very much for replying and your helpful advice.

I had a lot of bleeding and ended up getting signed off for the rest of the pregnancy from week 16 - much easier to recruit for a longer sick leave/maternity cover than having me in and out. Depends on the docs though

Any "sanctions" would be discriminatory. Some things like rearranging work to ensure good services are not sanctions and can be justified, but might feel like sanctions.

They probably mainly need to identify any support needed, eg adjustments to the job.