Stress - maternity leave start

[ChelseaCat]

Hi guys

Short story - things at work have gone to shit in a major way and I am struggling to cope. I have made noises to the relevant people and they are being supportive but it’s not really helping.

My question is: I am due to start maternity leave on 6 January - our policy says if you are off work with maternity related sickness in the month before your scheduled mat leave then you are required to start to start mat leave at that point. If I’m signed off with stress, would this count as maternity related sickness? I don’t think it would be but would be grateful for your wisdom

TIA

Also, just to add - I don’t have any real sickness history or any MH problems generally. I would normally class myself as someone who is resilient and able to cope with a lot of pressure. This would be out of character for me and is not something I’m considering lightly but I need to put the health my baby and myself first

this would be out of character for me and is not something I’m considering lightly but I need to put the health my baby and myself first

Pregnancy related.

I was signed off with work related stress in the weeks leading up to my maternity leave (the doctor specified that it was work related on my sick note rather than pregnancy related). It did not affect my maternity leave which started on the date it was planned to start.

Difficult one, I'd generally say not pregnancy related sickness but it sounds like it might well be. You wouldn't usually go off in those circumstances and you need to put your baby first, therefore it sounds like it could be seen as pregnancy related.

My workplace has the same policy and I'm dreading having to go off early. I finish in mid February so have stuck in as much leave as I can to save me some stress when I'm getting close to leaving.

In my case, I know that it would very much depend on which manager I had at the time. Some would see it as standard sick and others, mainly women of the 'well I coped so you should too' thinking would immediately jump on it being pregnancy related. This may well depend on how you've discussed it with your manager as if you've told them you need to think about the stress on the baby, you may end up having to start maternity early.

it’s not pregnancy related if it is stress. It’s not really open to that much interpretation. Baby/pregnancy problems = pregnancy related. Stress = not pregnancy related.

It doesn’t sound pregnancy-related to me. If you get signed off your doctor should be able to advise.