? SPD & working from home vs getting signed off

[74slackbladder]

Pretty sure I have SPD. Have seen GP, 2 x midwife & physio. Am 28 weeks and still have 2 months left to work - I work 4 days a week and already have one DS. I commute by train each of the 4 days and have 10 min walk each end of the commute. This is what is making things painful.
GP was keen to sign me off totally. I resisted ( the dedicated employee in me coming out there) and thought some kind of compromise might be better.
Suggested to Boss today 2 x days in office and 2 x days wking from home. Have mobile, laptop, can access work email and shared files remotely. her response was she didnt find that 'satisfactory'. and also trotted out a lot of waffle about H&S and that she didn't want company to be liable if anything happened to me or baby whilst on way to or from wk. bottom line really seems to be if she wont agree to this wkg from home 2 days i will have to get signed off totally.
anyone got any comments/suggestions/advice....?

Hi 74slackbladder

Have you tried reflexology? It may help. Also there are abdominal supports that I've heard can be quite helpful.

Get Occupational Health involved. IMO they bend over backwards (scuse poor choice fo phrase) to help the employee, often to the detriment of the employer. If no Occ health I think you can ask your HR or H & S dept to refer you to an external one.

my hr rep told me my manager had to speak to occ health, not me.
my manager is notoriously unhelpful with anything relating to pregnancy/children. she sees it all as a big inconvenience. if the wants me totally signed off rather than agreeing to the working from home, though it seems silly to me, i will do it. i will get full pay after all...

I've been signed off since around 28 weeks with the same, even though I have crutches etc. I see these only as a tool to help me keep on going, when really and I am being very honest here - the only thing that is actually helping me is resting completely. I thought I could still drive as it wasn't painful but I soon realised that later on those days the pain flares up even worse, therefore at the moment I am reliant on my DH to do lots for me, I can't even walk as far now as I could weeks ago and worry myself that I have actually cause more damage to myself by trying to keep on going.

I am now 35 weeks pg and although I visited the occ health Dr who actually sympathised with me he advised to my bosses that I should be set up to work from home, that was about 6 weeks ago and noone has approached me.
Do yourself a favour and if you are signed off, just be signed off and don't try to struggle. Noone thanks you for it, and it would be less stressful than trying to explain/prove anything to your boss. I too am on full pay until 4 weeks before my EDD, and therefore have to start my mat leave approx 3 weeks earlier than planned. Honestly - it's a small price to pay. We don't know how SPD will affect us after the birth of our children and my view is to look after yourself right now, you are, afterall creating a child in your body xxx
Also just wanted to mention that my MW advised this was 'normal', and therefore I carried on as long as I could - but really it's not normal to be in this much pain. I have support braces also and these made me worse. NHS Physio not much help unfortunately. I have since seen a chiropractor who told me my pubic bones are becoming overlapping and this is why the pain - I have been getting adjustments to try to relieve the pain, have helped me but time will tell and after labour then we will see.

Good luck xxxx

Agree totally with Indigo - had horrific SPD with my 1st pregnancy & did similar journey as you, eventually asking to work at home and had the same response. Stupidly I kept going to work, right up to 38 weeks, absolutely crippled and crying with the pain. To cut a long story short, I had a horrific labour because my pelvis dislocated completely and took a year afterwards to learn to walk again - and the PND was just as debilitating. Don't put work before you and your baby. Am currently on mat leave after baby2 and it was so different, I knew what to expect, learnt to rest and to cope. Three months on SPD is gone, and I can do stuff with the baby(apart from going out at the moment due to weather)

If medical advice is that you should be signed off completely, it sounds very sensible of your manager to want to go with that rather than your own preference to continue working. It may seem over-cautious to you, but inagine if your SPD should get worse or something similar because you are commuting and working at home, and your boss had allowed you to do that when she knew the medical advice was it would be better to be at home...

Take your GP's advice for your own benefit anyway, especially if you will get full pay.

thanks all. i think its looking like getting signed off. its strange for me cos i never get ill or have had to take long sick leave before. i also had a completely pain free first pg, so in my head i OUGHT to be able to keep going and do all the things i normally do.
however, although things are not so bad at moment with my pelvis, i know how bad it can get from what friends have told me and your posts. so i guess i will just have to deal with being signed off.
you are all telling me what dh had already told me so i know it make sense. whatever else happens the baby is most important
thanks
x