An antenatal appointment includes any appointment during pregnancy made on the advice of a GP, midwife or other medical professional. This could include scans, midwife or health visitor appointments, relaxation classes, or parenting classes. Employees are entitled to paid time off work for antenatal appointments from day one of their employment.

An employee must request the time off (other than for the very first appointment), and the employer may request evidence, such as a letter from the GP or midwife, an appointment card, or a confirmation letter. If evidence is not provided, the employer may refuse the request. An employer may also refuse time off if it is reasonable to do so, for example, where insufficient notice is given.

Employees may be expected to arrange appointments outside working hours, at the start or end of the working day, or during quieter periods for the business. Employees should be paid their normal rate of pay for the full time associated with the appointment, including travel and waiting times. They should not be required to make up the time or lose pay as a result.

Clear communication is important so both parties understand what notice is required, what an employer deems reasonable and what evidence may be needed. This helps ensure employees can attend antenatal appointments without unnecessary disruption to the business.

IVF

Employee’s undergoing IVF treatment will be protected by sex discrimination law from the time of the follicular puncture (when the ova are collected) until the implantation of fertilised ova in the uterus, immediately after fertilisation. 

Once fertilised ova are implanted in the uterus, an employee is classed as pregnant and therefore pregnancy discrimination law will also come into play. 

The Employee must not be treated any less favourably as a result of the treatment (sex) or their pregnancy (pregnancy).

If the implantation subsequently fails, and the pregnancy ends, the protected period ends, 2 weeks later. 

IVF - Rights

There is no statutory right to time off for IVF treatment however, decisions in cases relating to IVF do lend support to the idea that employers should allow employees time off for latter stages of IVF treatment

The EHRC Code recommends that employers should: a. treat requests for time off for IVF treatment “sympathetically”; and, b. establish procedures for allowing time off for IVF and fertility treatment.  They must not treat employees any less favourably as a result.

Both parents may need to take additional leave in the event of unsuccessful fertility treatment.  Depending on the circumstances, this could include annual, sick or unpaid leave.  Employees can also request support, prior to and on their return from work.

Employers have a legal duty to provide a safe working environment and to manage any risks to the health and safety of their staff. Once an employee informs their employer that they are pregnant, a risk assessment should be carried out. This may involve reviewing the existing workplace risk assessment and considering any additional risks to the employee and/or her baby.

It is good practice for the employer and employee to carry out the assessment together, taking into account her role, responsibilities, and any potential hazards. Examples may include long periods on her feet, driving for extended periods, lifting or carrying heavy items, working long hours, or exposure to chemicals or toxic substances. Advice from medical practitioners should also be considered.

Where risks are identified, steps must be taken to remove or reduce them. This might involve changing working conditions, responsibilities, or hours – for example, avoiding heavy lifting, allowing more breaks during driving, or reducing time spent standing. If adjustments cannot be made or the risks cannot be reduced, the employer must look for suitable alternative work on no less favourable terms. If no such work is available, the employee has the right to be suspended on full pay for as long as necessary to avoid the risk.

Important considerations for employees suffering from pregnancy related illnesses

Produced in partnership with Pregnancy Sickness Support.

Download the fact sheet

An employee can start their maternity leave as early as 11 weeks before her baby is due.

b. In most cases, an employee will want to take all/some of any accrued annual leave prior to her maternity leave starting. This should be agreed in advance.

c. Maternity leave will start automatically if the baby comes early, from the day after the baby is born.

d. All employees must take 2 weeks’ maternity leave, starting with the day their baby is born. This right increases to 4 weeks for factory workers. This is called “compulsory maternity leave”.

e. An individual can take up to 52 weeks’ of maternity leave (including the 2 (or 4) weeks of compulsory maternity leave), broken up into:

26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave; and 26 weeks of Additional Maternity Leave. Employees do not have to take the full 52 weeks.

Individuals may be entitled to:

1. Maternity Allowance;

2. Statutory Maternity Pay (“SMP”) – SMP is paid for 39 weeks.  This is split into 90% of the employee’s average gross weekly earnings for the first 6 weeks, and then the statutory weekly amount (£187.18 in the 2025/2026 tax year) or 90% of average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the remaining 33 weeks.

3. Contractual Maternity Pay – Employees may be entitled to contractual maternity pay.  This will depend upon whether an employer offers anything over and above the statutory entitlement. Employees should check their contracts and/or any maternity procedures/policies, to see whether there is any such benefit in place.

4. Keeping in Touch Days - If an employee works any Keeping in Touch Days, it can be agreed that she will be paid in full for those days, inclusive of any maternity pay she may be entitled to.  Conversations about payment of Keeping in Touch Days should be held in advance of any work taking place.

Miscarriage / Late Foetal Loss

Where a baby is lost or born sleeping in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy an employee will not be entitled to maternity leave or pay.

Neither parent will be entitled to Parental Bereavement Leave.

However, employees should check whether their employer has any policies or procedures in place which may offer leave/pay in these circumstances.

Any absence on medical grounds as a result of the employee’s miscarriage must be treated in the same way as pregnancy-related sickness.

Both parents may be able to take other forms of leave, such as annual leave, sick leave or unpaid.  These should be agreed with their employer.  An employee can also request support, prior to and on their return from work.

Stillbirth / Neonatal Death

When a baby is born sleeping, after at least 24 complete weeks of pregnancy an employee will be entitled to all rights in relation to maternity leave and pay (subject to meeting the relevant qualifying criteria).  

Maternity leave will start day after the child’s birth (if it hadn’t already).

Both parents have the right to Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay (in addition to maternity leave/pay and paternity leave and pay)

Employees should check their employer’s policies as some provide for more generous leave and pay in this situations.

Neonatal Care Leave (“NCL”) allows parents to have additional time off to be with a baby (under 28 days of age) who is receiving neonatal care.  If a parent has already booked statutory parental leave, NCL can be added to the end of this.

NCL isn’t solely connected to care in a neonatal unit, it can also include medical care in the hospital, care at home under the direction of a consultant or care or monitoring under the direction of a consultant but away from the hospital/home.  It also includes palliative or end of life care.  It can also be used when the baby is no longer receiving neonatal care, for example, at the end of maternity leave.

The right to NCL

The right to take NCL is a day 1 right and eligible parents can take neonatal care leave once their child has been in neonatal care for at least 7 consecutive days. Parents who are not already on leave might need to take another form of leave for the first 7 days ie dependants, annual or unpaid leave.

Parents get 1 week of leave for each week the baby is in care, up to a maximum of 12 weeks.  The leave must be taken within 68 weeks of the baby’s birth.

Tiers of NCL

There are 2 tiers of NCL, which depend upon when the leave is taken:

• Tier 1 -  applies to leave taken while a baby is still receiving care and up to a week after neonatal care ends and can be taken in non-continuous blocks of a minimum of one week at a time.

• Tier 2 - applies to leave taken more than 7 days after the neonatal care has ended and must be taken in one continuous block.

Parents can only take the same amount of NCL even if more than 1 baby is taken into neonatal care at the same time ie twins.

Neonatal Care Pay
In addition to NCL, eligible parents will be entitled to up to 12 weeks of Neonatal Care Pay.  Unlike NCL, parents must have at least 26 weeks of continuous service with their employer and meet the minimum earnings threshold.

Notification

A pregnant employee does not need to tell her employer that she is pregnant until the 15th week before her baby is due. She will not be able to benefit from the rights listed below, such as paid time off to attend antenatal appointments, until her employer is aware of the pregnancy.

Within 28 days of being told that an employee is expecting, and being provided with the date on which she intends to start her maternity leave, an employer must write to notify her of the date that her maternity leave will end, which will be 52 weeks from the start of her maternity leave, unless the employee has requested it to be any earlier.

Key Rights during pregnancy

1. Paid time off for antenatal appointments.

2. Health and Safety Protection.

3. Protection from dismissal, detriment or discrimination because of pregnancy and/or pregnancy related illness. The right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy if you are placed at risk of redundancy, should such a vacancy exist.

A pregnancy-related illness is any form of illness, condition or symptom linked to a pregnancy or the loss of a pregnant.  In practice, we see cases involving tiredness, backache, pelvic girdle pain (PGP), pregnancy-related sickness / hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) (often wrongly referred to as “morning sickness”), gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.  Unfortunately, we also see cases that involve miscarriage.

It may be that employees need reasonable adjustments to be made as a result of such conditions, or that they need to take time off work.

Reporting and recording pregnancy-related illnesses

If a pregnant employee is not well, for whatever reason then this should be handled no differently to others.  They should always follow any sickness procedure and reporting requirements that their employer has in place, and make sure that fit notes are provided if they are off for longer than 4 days consecutively.  A point of advice would be to ensure that any such fit note records the reason for absence correctly. 

One difference is that employers must ensure that they record any pregnancy-related sickness absence separately from other sickness absence.  This is because pregnancy-related sickness absence cannot be used for any formal processes such as redundancy, or disciplinary or count towards any review or trigger points in an absence policy.

Pay

A pregnant employee who is off due to pregnancy-related illness should receive sick pay – whether that be statutory sick pay (“SSP”) or any contractual sick pay offered by their employer.

If an employee is off sick during their Statutory maternity pay qualifying period, and their pay is reduced in any way, to SSP or nil, this may affect how much SMP they subsequently receive as this is based on what an individual actually receives during the qualifying period.  They should also check whether there will be any reduction in their entitlement to contractual maternity pay, on the same basis.  

Adjustments

An employee should speak to HR if she is suffering with any form of pregnancy-related illness.  There may be adjustments that can be made to mean that she can continue to work, but allowing flexibility for her to also manage her sickness/condition.  This might include being able to start later and finish earlier, working from home or taking extra breaks.

A risk assessment should be carried out in any event, to see what support is required and is possible to put in place to support an employee in this situation.

Last 4 weeks before baby is due

If an employee is off work sick with a pregnancy-related illness during the last four weeks before their expected week of childbirth, their maternity leave and pay will begin automatically.  It can be agreed between employee and employer that this will not happen.  Once maternity leave starts, the employee will be paid maternity pay, not sick pay.

Rights

It is against the law to treat an employee unfairly or less favourably because of a pregnancy related-illness.

Protection from dismissal, detriment or discrimination because of a pregnancy or a pregnancy related illness.

The Equality Act states that it is unlawful to treat an employee unfavourably because they are pregnant, or have a pregnancy-related illness.  This is a “day one” right – an employee is protected against pregnancy discrimination from the date she becomes pregnant (mindful of the fact that an employer must know about the pregnancy for the discrimination to occur).

Examples of unfavourable treatment that we see in practice, include being demoted, denied an annual review, refused a pay rise or bonus, having responsibilities removed (unless agreed due to health and safety concerns), being excluded from meetings, or having work taken away.

If an employer breaches the Equality Act, the employee has the right to raise a formal grievance or bring a Tribunal claim against both the employer and any individuals involved in the treatment. See also our section on Redundancy Protection for pregnant employees. 

It is possible for an employee to be made redundant whilst pregnant, during maternity, adoption, shared parental or neonatal care leave, as long as there is a genuine redundancy situation.

There are however enhanced protection in relation to suitable alternative roles when an employee is placed at risk of redundancy whilst pregnant, on maternity leave or on her return.

Redundancy Protection Period

The legislation used to only cover those employees who were on maternity leave when their role was placed at risk of redundancy, however from 6 April 2024, this was extended.

The redundancy protection period now:

• Starts when an employee informs their employer of their pregnancy; and

• Ends 18 months from the exact date that their baby is born.

NB it also applies where an employee has suffered a miscarriage before the end of the 24th week of pregnancy, for 2 weeks following that miscarriage.  If a child is stillborn after 24 weeks of pregnancy, the redundancy protection period ends 18 months from the date of the birth.

This applies to employees who are pregnant, taking maternity, adoption or shared parental leave or who has taken 6 consecutive weeks of neonatal care leave.  It does not apply to paternity leave.

Suitable Alternative Employment

Where an individual’s role is placed at risk and they have this protection, they will have priority when it comes to any suitable alternative vacancies.

An employer must offer any such vacancies to employees who have the protection first, over and above any other employees whose roles may also be at risk.  No interview or scoring process needs to be undertaken - this applies even if the individual is not the best candidate for the role.

The question of what a suitable lternative vacancy is, is a cause for much debate.  The alternative job must:

• Be suitable and appropriate for the employee in the circumstances

• Not be substantially less favourable than their previous role in relation to location, terms, conditions and status.

If there is only one job and more than 1 individual with the enhanced protection, the employer can then carry out a process to decide which is more suitable.

If there is no suitable alternative vacancy, the individual can be made redundant provided that the reason is not connected to her pregnancy, maternity, shared parental, adoption or neonatal care leave.  A fair process must be followed to effect the dismissal.

Employees can take up to 52 weeks’ maternity leave.  

If an employee wants to return to work earlier than planned, 8 weeks’ notice must be given.  If this notice is not given, then an employer can refuse your request or to pay you until the 8 week period has ended.

Maternity Leave is split into 2 parts:

1. Ordinary Maternity Leave (“OML”) – the first 26 weeks.

2. Additional maternity Leave (“AML”) – any part of the second 26 weeks.

Rights on rights on return from OML

If an employee returns to work before the end of the OML period, they will be entitled to return to exactly the same job, on the same terms and conditions as they were employed, prior to going on maternity leave.

Rights on return from AML

If an employee returns to work during, or following the AML period they can still return to the same job, on the same terms and conditions as they were employed, prior to going on maternity leave UNLESS their employer can prove that it is not reasonably practicable for them to do so.  This may cover a reorganisation, a redundancy situation or where the job has changed substantially whilst the individual has been on leave.

In these circumstances, an individual should be offered a suitable alternative job, on similar terms and conditions, as before if one exists

Normal terms and conditions

An employee is entitled to her normal terms and conditions during her maternity leave, apart from “remuneration” which relates to wages or salary.  This is usually changed ie reduced to statutory maternity pay, or an employee is paid in accordance with any contractual maternity pay their employer may offer.

For example, employees will continue to accrue their statutory annual leave entitlement whilst they are on maternity leave (currently 5.6 weeks per year), together with any contractual entitlement to annual leave that they may have in addition to this. They may also have a right to receive bonuses.  Bonuses may be pro-rated in certain cases for example, for the period of time that an employee was in work during the relevant bonus year.  An employer does not however have to pay non-contractual benefits, such as a discretionary bonuses. 

Other “non-cash” benefits should also continue such as gym memberships, private healthcare etc.

Maternity Pay

Subject to qualifying criteria which the employee must meet, she will be entitled to maternity pay for 39 weeks of her leave (see our Maternity Pay section for more details).  

Maternity Leave

An employee is able to take up to 52 weeks’ maternity leave.  The first 2 weeks are classed as compulsory (this is increased to 4 weeks for factory workers).  The first 26 weeks are called “Ordinary Maternity leave” and the following 26 weeks “Additional Maternity Leave”

Kept in the loop

Employees should also be kept up to date with anything that might affect their role and responsibilities, such as restructures, redundancies and changes in line management.  It is advisable that employees set the way in which they wish to be contacted, such as via a personal email address, the frequency of any such contact and what they want to be contacted about prior to going on leave.

Redundancy Rights

The right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy if you are placed at risk of redundancy during your maternity leave, or for 18 months from the expected week of childbirth/the birth of the employee’s baby (whichever is earlier), should such a vacancy exist.

Protection

From dismissal, detriment or discrimination because of childbirth and / or maternity.

KIT Days

Employees can work up to 10 days during their maternity leave, without ending their leave or pay.  These are called Keeping in Touch Days and are usually referred to as “KIT Days”.

Even where an employee works for a couple of hours, or half a day, this will be counted as 1 KIT Day.

KIT Days do need to be agreed in advance, as does the amount of pay an employee should receive for working a KIT Day.

The work undertaken by an employee during a KIT Day should also be agreed in advance, but can include training, team meetings, away days, or just catching up on emails, work and progress.

Many individuals that we speak to have been offered a Settlement Agreement by their employer / former employer. We also advise individuals who want to part ways with their employer via the settlement route and we can provide frank, helpful and tactical advice to achieve this outcome swiftly and as amicably as possible.

A settlement agreement is a legally binding agreement signed by both the individual and the company - usually employer and employee - that resolves a dispute or potential legal claim. It typically involves the employer providing a payment (often referred to as a termination or settlement payment) and/or other benefits, such as a reference in exchange for the employee agreeing to waiver their right to make claims against the employer going forward. By reaching a settlement, both parties can avoid the time, expense, and uncertainty of a court case.

In order for a settlement agreement to be legally binding an individual must take independent legal advice on the terms and effect of the document. A contribution to legal fees is often made by the employer under the agreement, so that the individual can do so.

Pregnant and Protected's team of solicitors have extensive experience when it comes to negotiating and advising on Settlement Agreements, having helped thousands of people previously reach a favourable resolution of their employment relationship in this way. Whether the agreement has been presented to you as part of a disciplinary process, a redundancy or business restructure, or as a result of you raising a grievance or a Tribunal claim, we can help you, no matter where you are based in the UK.

Our team is always happy to talk through any queries or questions you have in relation to a settlement agreement, and provide quick and thorough advice on whether the settlement proposal is fair and appropriate, in the circumstances and if not, what your options are.

Please do not hesitate to reach out via the Contact page if you need help or advice with a settlement agreement.

Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave (“SPBL”) is only available to employees who have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks.

This allows time off for parents, if their child passes away, before they turn 18 or if their baby is born sleeping, after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

SPBL gives employees 2 weeks leave (for each child who passed away/was born sleeping), which can be taken as 2 full weeks, or 2 separate weeks.  The 2 weeks must be taken within 56 weeks of the date of the death/stillbirth.

Together with SPBL, employees may also be entitled to Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay if they are the child’s parent (biological, adoptive, surrogate), the partner of the child’s parent or if they had day-to-day responsibility for the care of the child and they were living with them for 4 continuous weeks prior to the death/stillbirth without one of the child’s parents also living with them.

We are often asked: “When should I tell my employer I am pregnant?” This is not strictly a legal question – it is more about when an employee feels comfortable doing so.

Legally, a pregnant employee does not need to inform her employer until the 15th week before her baby is due. However, she will not be able to access certain rights (such as paid time off for antenatal appointments) until her employer is aware of the pregnancy.

Within 28 days of being told that an employee is pregnant, and being given the date she intends to start her maternity leave, the employer must confirm in writing the date her maternity leave will end. This will usually be 52 weeks from the start of maternity leave unless the employee requests an earlier return date.