What are my Maternity Leave rights? Do I have any?

Can I work whilst on Maternity Leave?

Yes but only a little bit for your regular employer. See our section on Keeping in Touch Days in our Maternity Leave post for more information.

You are allowed to work from home on a self employed basis (say if you’re superwoman and have a side business on top of everything) and still receive your Statutory Maternity Pay.

What if my baby is born early or I have a stillbirth or miscarriage?

You can still receive SML and SMP if:

• Your baby is born prematurely
• Your baby is stillborn after the start of your 24th week of pregnancy
• Your baby dies after being born

If you have a miscarriage (you lose your pregnancy before the 24th week), you unfortunately won’t be eligible for SML or SMP.

We’re planning a post about the financial implications of miscarriage and stillbirth. Please stay tuned and subscribe to our email list to hear straight away when we release it. 

Does maternity leave have to start on a Sunday?

No.

The earliest day you can begin your maternity leave is 11 weeks before the sunday before your due date. Of course if your baby is born before this date, your maternity leave will start as soon as the birth happens. 

To find the day which is the earliest date you can start your leave, locate a calendar and find the Sunday before your due date and count back 11 weeks.

Your maternity leave can begin any day after that. The exceptions are if your baby is born early or you’re diagnosed with a pregnancy related illness in the last 4 weeks of pregnancy and your employer insists your leave begins at that point.

Am I eligible for maternity leave if I adopt?

Yes, there is a similar system set up to provide leave and pay for those who adopt children in the UK. Though adoption rights aren’t identical to maternity leave rights there are some similarities.

To qualify for adoption leave you must

• Be an employee (similarly to SML),
• an approved adoption agency must match you (or you and your partner) with a child, and,
• All of the relevant paperwork, dates and signatures must be in place.

The above criteria mean that adoption leave is only available to those who are matched with a child via an agency. If you file for adoption of a specific child (eg that is already a part of your family), you would not be eligible.

Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP) is fairly similar to SMP in amount and you still need to have been employed for 26 weeks and receive a minimum amount of pay to qualify.

There are lots of questions to answer on how adoption works, the leave and pay system and the financial effect it will have on your family.

I’m planning a detailed post about the financial implications of adopting a child, so if you’re interested in this area please keep an eye out for it. Drop me an email via our Contact Us page to let me know what information you’d like to see too! 

You need time off for antenatal appointments. You should get it!

You will need anywhere from seven to a great many antenatal appointments. During these appointments you’ll do things like

• Speak with your midwife about all things pregnancy
• Discuss the pregnancy with your GP
• Have blood tests, urine tests and blood pressure readings taken
• Have ultrasound scans

And they also include educational groups like

• Pregnancy information classes
• Smoking Cessation Classes
• Parenting classes

Pregnant employees have the right to reasonable paid time off for all antenatal scans, classes and appointments with a registered medical/nursing practitioner (eg GP, obstetrician, midwife or health visitor).

Agency workers who’ve worked for the same employer for more than 12 weeks are entitled to paid time off for antenatal appointments that occur during normal working hours.

Fathers and partners who are employees are entitled unpaid time off for up to two antenatal appointments (6.5 hours each). Some employers may offer paid time off.

The time off allowed for the appointments should be ‘reasonable’. For example if you have an afternoon appointment you should go to the work in the morning and discuss when to leave with your boss. If your appointment is in the morning and you work standard office hours, you should go back to work afterwards.

Your employer is not supposed to ask you to arrange your appointments on your off days, though it’s generally the best case not to seem like you’re taking advantage! If an appointment falls on a day off anyway then go to it.

Your employer can ask for proof that you are pregnant, but a note from your GP or midwife will have to suffice at first. The MAT1B certificate is only issued after 20 weeks or more, so your employer can’t insist on seeing it for your initial antenatal appointments. You don’t need to provide proof of your first appointment, as you might not have any physical proof. You can give appointment cards or advice letters for the subsequent appointments.

All women and all pregnancies are different. Some women run into problems during their pregnancy and will require more antenatal appointments than others. If the registered healthcare professionals looking after you during your pregnancy feel extra scans, appointments or classes are necessary, ask them to provide you with a letter as such (you may already have been given one). You can then give this to your employer if they question the number of your appointments.

If your employer refuses to give you reasonable paid time off for antenatal care (including appointments, classes and scans recommended by a registered healthcare professional) they are refusing you an employment right to which you are entitled. You could ultimately take them to an employment tribunal under section 57 of the Employment Rights Act 1976. This is an extreme step and the situation can usually be resolved by speaking to them informally in person or perhaps formally in writing where you state your rights.

You can find more information about your rights in pregnancy on the government’s website here.

I’m both disabled and pregnant. Where do I stand?

What if I want to resign during my pregnancy?

You don’t intend to go back to work after your pregnancy. You’re confident that this is the right move for your family and it stacks up financially. Can you still get Statutory Maternity Pay?

Yes!

(Please note we’d recommend waiting until your baby is here to resign from your job as you never know how you’ll feel or how your finances will be shaping up until you’ve assessed things a few weeks in).

You should be able to still receive your Statutory Maternity Pay or Materntiy Allowance money even if you resign during pregnancy, but only if you resign after the 15th week before your baby is due (roughly week 26). If you resign before this you’ll not be eligible for SMP. This would be a disaster.

You need to know what your contractual notice period is to terminate your employment. This should be written in your contract.

If you’re in the rare position where you don’t have a contractual notice period you need to provide a week’s notice to end your employment.

If you have a longer defined notice period then you just need to hand in your notice in the normal way.

Say you have an eight week notice period, resigning at week 28 or later would be a good bet to ensure you let your notice period run out whilst still on maternity leave, and not have to go back to work afterwards.

You won’t have to pay back any SMP/MA, your employer claims back almost all of it from HMRC anyway. However do be aware if you work for an employer that pays more than the statutory amount of maternity pay, you may have to pay back the extra amount.

What if I want to resign during maternity leave and not go back to work?

You can hand in your notice during the normal way. Just make sure you do so before the end of your maternity leave. SML lasts for 52 weeks (39 weeks paid and 13 weeks unpaid if you qualify for SMP).

If you have an eight week notice period make sure it’s more than eight weeks before the end of your maternity leave or you’ll have to return to work to work out your remaining notice.

You do not need to go ‘back to work’ during your maternity leave to work your notice if you notify your employer in time.

You will still be entitled to all the employment benefits during your notice period that you were before.

Note as well that during your maternity leave and notice period you’ll still continue to build up annual leave. If you have unspent leave at the end of your notice period, your employer should pay you for this.  

On Maternity Leave and been treated unfairly? Do these things!

Should I still pay into my workplace pension when on maternity leave?

Remember, during maternity leave, your pension contributions will probably be smaller than normal given your reduced level of earnings (if you’re just bringing in SMP). Check your contract though. If you’re employer has enhanced rates of maternity pay on top of the statutory amounts, you might have to contribute fairly close to what you normally would to keep your pension going.

We would really advise not to opt out of your workplace pension during maternity leave.

If you plan to do this you need to check the rules within your scheme about breaks in service and how easy it is to rejoin after a break. Missing out on a year’s worth of contributions (or several years) will cost you hugely in the long run.

Investment firm AJ Bell report that two 1 year ‘gaps’ in employment could cost a parent (earning a standard UK salary) £25k in pension pot (mitigated to £13k if you still pay contributions during maternity leave). They go on to say that one 5 year career break to have kids could cost you up to £100k in pension money by retirement age.

I’m not an employee. What about my pension?

It’s a simpler matter if you’re not an employee with a workplace pension. You don’t have a helpful employer making contributions to your pension for you. Your contributions to your pension are your own, with any associated tax relief.  Plus, if you’re bringing in less money each month (i.e receiving SMP) you’ll not only have less disposable income, you might not pay enough tax to qualify for any tax relief on your private pension contributions.

The same principles apply as above to self employed people and those outwith employer pension schemes. Try and keep up contributions while you’re on parental leave and top up any shortfall when you return to work full time. You can add up to £40k every year to a pension so it should be easy to top it up if you can afford to afterwards.

What to do next

Avoid these pitfalls!

I hope this post has made the complex process of planning a maternity or paternity leave period a bit more straightforward. Please follow some of the links within the post to resources linked to topics that were especially complicated.

These are the common pitfalls I hope the advice above will allow you to avoid.

• You don’t realise what you’re entitled to
• If something sounds like you’re getting less than you should be, question it
• You don’t access shared parental leave because it seems complicated (dedicated post coming soon!)
• You don’t get your forms in in time
• You don’t keep track of all your documents
• You get overwhelmed by all the information

Thanks for reading! If you liked the content, I’d be super grateful if you’d share it with your friends! 😀 

Where to find more information

Whilst researching this topic (just like I’ve done with other articles) I discovered that there are so many layers to it. I’ve tried to summarise all the points in this article in an easy to understand manner, but there is so much more detail that you need to understand about each point if it applies to you.

Here are two links that you can go to for more information. They’re very long posts but try and find the paragraphs that relate to you.

The government site on detailed maternity benefit (leave and pay) advice

A charity called Maternity Action tackles all these topics in detail. As per their website they are the ‘UK’s leading charity committed to ending inequality and improving the health and well-being of pregnant women, partners and young children – from conception through to the child’s early years’. They’re a great resource!