Pregnant employees have certain extra legal protection.

The main four rights that a pregnant employee has are :

- to paid time off work for antenatal care,$0$0- to maternity leave,

- to maternity pay or maternity allowance and,

- protection from discrimination and dismissal.

Employers are required to allow pregnant employees reasonable time off to attend antenatal appointments.

Protection against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy and maternity extends to employees and workers. Examples of such discrimination may include dismissing them, not offering them a job, changing their pay or hours of work or altering to their detriment any other terms of employment. A pregnant employee is protected against dismissal on the grounds of her pregnancy irrespective of her length of service. It would make a dismissal unfair if it was because the employer sacked the individual because she was pregnant, had given birth, proposed to take maternity leave, or parental leave (see link). Naturally, if the employer genuinely did not know that the employee was pregnant at the time of dismissal this will not apply – so the employee would have to rely on the usual provisions of two years of service and usual protections. The protection against discrimination lasts while the individual is pregnant, and until either their maternity leave ends or they return to work (or leave their job during or at the end of the maternity leave period).

Employers are required to assess risks to the health and safety of pregnant women, new mothers and their children. A pregnant employee may be able to claim unlawful sex discrimination against her employer if they fail to carry out such a risk assessment.

Common risks for pregnant staff include heavy lifting, working long hours, standing or sitting in a set place for prolonged periods. Once the risks have been identified they need to be communicated to the pregnant employee, and all women of childbearing age in the workplace. If a risk still exists, after all reasonable measures have been taken, that could cause significant harm to the health and safety of the pregnant employee then the employer must take steps to remove the pregnant employee from the risk. The employer must:-

a) Temporarily adjust the employee’s working hours or conditions,

b) Offer her suitable alternative work if any is available,

c) Suspend her from work as long as is necessary to protect her health and safety (or that of her child) this would be a paid suspension.

Only after the employer has assessed the risk of harm, tried to avoid it by appropriate measures (such as changing her hours of work), or offer suitable alternative work should an employer suspend the employee on health and safety grounds. A pregnant employee that is suspended on maternity related health and safety grounds is entitled to her usual full pay during the period of the suspension.

The Sex Discrimination Act, and now the Equality act 2010 which replaced it, expressly prohibits discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy. This prevents any unfavourable treatment due to being pregnant or seeking to exercise the right to maternity leave.

These issues should be addressed by employers in an Equal Opportunities Policy (see PAYG), and managers should have training on how to operate the policy correctly.