Work related stress... and preeclampsia

[PrincessClairey]

Hi everyone

I'm 23 weeks into my second pregnancy. In my first pregnancy I had to be induced and ended up with an emergency c-section at 37 weeks because I had developed preeclampsia. It was horrendous and the last thing I want is for that to happen again.

Problem is, I'm in a very stressful position at work. I'm a teacher and my employer is pretty much bullying me. It's all sneaky stuff, I'm keeping a record of it all but it's nothing that it's possible to put your finger on and label as bullying or discrimination or anything like that. One big part of it is that I'm appealing their decision to refuse my pay rise, and they were nice enough to send me all their evidence against me whilst I was off in the Christmas holidays (see? Stuff like that!) and I'm getting worked up about the impending meeting.

This, as well as all the regular stuff - trust me, some new stress-inducing issue comes up almost every day - is not only making my life a misery but I fear for me and baby. I'm worried that all this stress is going to up my risk of getting preeclampsia again.

Any advice? My employer hasn't done a risk assessment for me yet; is there any way the risk of stress can be somehow incorporated there?

Thanks in advance.

I don't know anything about preeclampsia, but I would say your first step is a trip to your doctor to find out whether it is or can be brought on by stress. Unless it's well known that it can be and I'm just clueless!

Stress comes under different policies in different companies, sometimed HR, sometimes H&S and others Occupational Health, so find yours. However whereever it is, is fairly irrelevant as a risk assessment for stress should be done and I would say is relevant in a pregnant workers risk assessment. Request it and ask for stress to be looked at as a hazard. Also, find your company stress policy (assuming there is one) and be well versed in what it says.