Maternity Leave & Maternity Pay

Maternity Leave - Changes

Returning to Work after Maternity Leave

There is no longer provision for an employer to write to a woman before the end of her ordinary maternity leave period to ask the date on which her child was born and whether she intends to return after her additional maternity leave period. This means that a woman who intends to return to work at the end of her full maternity leave entitlement is not required to give any further notification to her employer.

An employee who wants to return to work before the end of her maternity leave needs to give her employer 28 days' notice of the date she wants to return to work.

Sickness trigger

A woman's maternity leave starts automatically if she is absent from work for a pregnancy related illness during the four weeks before the start of her Expected Week of Childbirth (EWC), regardless of when she has said she actually wants her maternity leave to start.