Telling Your Employer You're Pregnant

Featuring Dr. Heather Jenkins, MD, CCFP

Duration: 1 minute, 53 seconds

When you’re pregnant or even if you’re thinking about becoming pregnant, people recognize that work is a very important part of their life, and their identity.

Part of the planning part of being pregnant is also looking ahead to your responsibilities around your work, and your worksite obligations. Common challenges that women have when they’re trying to make decisions about telling their employers about their pregnancy often hinge around when’s a safe time to tell them. So to a certain extent you’re trying to get far along in your pregnancy where certainly the outcome of a healthy baby is a likely result.

It’s like an issue with that as well too is that women need to prioritize their work responsibilities with their employers so that they can give their employer enough advance notice so that they can get their work responsibilities covered. Pregnancy is a very important time in woman’s life, that’s very obvious, but it’s also really important to allow yourself to experience different kinds and times in your pregnancy even while you’re at work, so inasmuch as it is sometimes challenging to tell your boss about your pregnancy, women often find it a tremendous relief now that they’ve disclosed their pregnancy, and it allows them a certain kind of freedom to go ahead and now experiencing the changing body, the changing energy levels and the changing needs in their workplace environment as well.

Every woman obviously has different job demands, and unique needs during their pregnancy. If you think that you may require time to stop early during your pregnancy, it’s a good idea to talk to your healthcare provider about that. You may need to actually take off extra time at the end of your pregnancy. Your health doctor or midwife can help you with that.

Presenter: Dr. Heather Jenkins, Family Doctor, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Family Doctor