If you worked in the community while pregnant, when did you stop doing home visits?

[Simone86]

I am pregnant and have a job which requires me to visit people at their home.

I wondered when would be reasonable to request that I stop that aspect of my job.

Thinking about my personal safety but also if a family member is unwell / chicken pox etc. Or if it’s a smoking household.

Work haven’t done a risk assessment even though I only have three months to go. I thought I would ask them to do one and make this part of it, but I don’t know when it would be reasonable to stop this part of my work.

You need work to do a pregnancy risk assessment which will clarify what you can and can’t do

Yes - however given that they haven’t done one yet (even though legally they should have done), I am going to assume they won’t really have any idea of the kinds of things that should be in it.

So I am hoping to be able to tell them some reasonable things to put in it.

The problem is that right now, I’m not sure what is reasonable! Hence asking on here.

I think it would be reasonable to stop home visits at some point, but I don’t know when.

I did home visits until I went on maternity leave.

didn’t see any reason not to do them, unless I actually knew someone had chickenpox etc

depending on your role, it could pretty much leave you twiddling your thumbs if you didn’t

I would expect that you should be allowed to check prior to the visits if there’s any illness such a covid, measles, chicken pox, etc and not visit those homes if they say there is. Is there any risk of violence in the role?

If an environment is deemed unsafe on your risk assessment,l (you may have to do your own) it will likely be unsafe from the moment you find out you are pregnant. So if you think that home visits have the potential to do you, or the baby harm, and you can't take precautions as others have suggested, then you should ask to stop immediately. But if you have been doing them happily until now then perhaps you can carry on until you start maternity leave. I can't imagine circumstances where a home visit suddenly becomes unsafe at e.g. 35 weeks, but maybe it depends on your job?

Self employed, I worked up to 2 weeks before due date.

I did home visits until I left for mat leave, but I did refuse to go into one house because they were very heavy chain smokers and I didn't visit care homes if they had covid positive pts.

Oddly my basic life support training needed renuing and I had a bit of an argument with one of the managers who said if I didn't do the BLS practical ( chest compressions) because I was 26weeks and really showing then I shouldn't be allowed to do home visits. Typical NHS every other pregnant colleague was given completely different advise. So I ignored that bit and continued with home visits doing my job.

I developed PGP early on so stopped visits where I needed to carry equipment or go up many flights of stairs (ie lots of the flats in my area) from 22ish weeks. Stopped home visits altogether 28 weeks where I was able to WFH instead (wrangled this with managers as it was a Covid policy until just before I got pregnant in 2022). My managers were amazing though and really supportive.

Wasn't too concerned about the passive smoking risk as I'm a non smoker and people don't usually smoke while I'm seeing them.

Your managers really do need to do a risk assessment though, surely HR has a generic proforma they complete with you?

District nursing we visit until mat leave unless other issues such as SPD then put on office duties. I worked nights on the district until 7 months, then office based as I was in so much pain.

Obviously any visits with communicable diseases/potential violence etc a no no from the get go.

Same....risk assessment of the household is done before the visit; any unsuitable visits are not given to you ie measles, chicken pox etc.
Not sure you need to stop home visits unless you have another medical need such as difficultly mobilising etc

Until I went on mat leave.

NHS staff are expected to do their own risk assessment on EVERY visit, whether pregnant or not, and make your decision on continuing the visit accordingly

It does depend on your exact job. As a MH nurse I would feel very uncomfortable doing home visits to any unknown patients and, in general, would only want to visit those who are a) very well known to the service and b) stable. People can turn so quickly and you do need to be able to rapidly mobilise; anything else puts you and your baby at risk. Of course, most NHS jobs aren’t like that so you need to make your own risk assessment. Do consider whether or not you can get out of someone’s home quickly if you need to though.

Depends partly on your job but I can’t see why you’d stop before maternity leave unless there’s an added complication.