Anybody work in a Veterinary Practice??

[AstroZola]

Hey all,
I'm hoping to TTC after my VN finals this year. Which would mean starting to TTC in September. I'm worried about telling my bosses as is usual for many I suppose, however, I'm also worried about being in and around the vet practice whilst pregnant. I won't be able to hold, lift, restrain heavy animals or awkward animals, like rabbits, because of the risk of damage to me or my stomach respectively. I shouldn't be in the presence of anaesthetic gases and our practice is very open plan. There's nowhere to hide. I could only monitor anaesthetic with a patient with a cuffed ET tube for example. I won't be able to clean litter trays or deal with hormones and because of all of this I'm worried that I'll still be made to work the weekends as the only nurse with one vet and therefore risk myself with all of these situations.

I also don't want to return to work after my maternity leave finishes, therefore am I allowed to take maternity leave and declare that I won't be returning to work and still get maternity leave? I would move into night work you see, to cope with child caring.

Thanks for any input.

Go to RCVS website and they have an advice leaflet on this

I am a vet with a child and have employed pregnant nurses. Your employer will need to do a risk assessment as soon as you tell them.

The risk assessment I have used includes not lifting weights over 10kg, no restraining difficult animals (personally rabbits I didn't have a big issue with) not being present when animals are being masked, cuffed ET tubes fine, wearing gloves to empty litter trays etc. in the safe zone when x-ray tube is fired, large animal work I continued to calve cows to 6 months ( actually stopped as broke my arm). I did not deal with pregnant ewes or cleanse cows at all whilst pregnant. But realistically all of these should be part of the standard health and safety and animals should not be maintained for any length of time via mask and people should only be outside the safe zone ie holding animal if it is clinically necessary.
I was employed when pregnant and told my boss at 8 weeks, my nurses have also told me at about 8 weeks.
We include out of hours in our risk assessment and people do continue to do it, but we have back up for lifting etc.
5 of us have had healthy pregnancies with these risk assessments.

Cool. Thanks for your help. Makes me feel slightly better about things. x