Rights for Working Parents and Carers

2. Ordinary Maternity Leave

2.1 Every employee who becomes pregnant is entitled to 26 weeks' ordinary maternity leave.

• Part-time employees have the same right to maternity leave as full-timers.

2.2 The employee must notify you, in writing if requested, that she is pregnant, and give notice of several key dates. She must:

• Tell you her expected week of childbirth (the EWC). You can reasonably ask your employee to provide confirmation of the EWC from her GP or midwife.
• Choose when to start her maternity leave, any time from the 11th week before the EWC, and inform you of the start date by the 15th week before the EWC or at least 28 days before her leave is due to begin. Depending on the circumstances, leave may even start on the day of the birth.
• Tell you when she has had the baby.
• Give eight weeks' notice if she wants to return to work before the end of her maternity leave.

2.3 You must write to her within 28 days of being told when she intends to start maternity leave, setting out the date on which her maternity leave will end.

• If this is the date on which she intends to return to work, she need do nothing more.

2.4 The law lays down time limits affecting a woman's return to work after childbirth.

• It is illegal for a woman to return to work within two weeks of giving birth (four weeks for factory workers). If a woman's baby is born right at the end of the maternity leave period (for example, if the due date was miscalculated), ordinary maternity leave is extended for two weeks.

2.5 It is automatically discrimination if you dismiss an employee during her maternity leave period, or select her for redundancy, wholly or mainly because she is pregnant, has taken maternity leave or has given birth (see 8.1).

2.6 If an employee is ill during her pregnancy, she is entitled to take sick leave, just as she would if she was not pregnant.

• If she is absent from work with a pregnancy-related illness in the four weeks ahead of the EWC, her maternity leave will start automatically, regardless of when she said she wanted it to start.
• If she is too ill to return to work at the end of her maternity leave, you must treat it as a sickness absence.
• If the absence persists, you may eventually need to follow your dismissal procedure. You must only consider absence following her return from maternity leave. To consider any absence during the pregnancy or sickness during maternity leave could be discriminatory and you could also be sued for unfair dismissal.
• 2.7 If she meets the qualifying conditions, a woman whose baby dies, or is stillborn, after the 24th week of pregnancy, is still entitled to ordinary maternity leave, additional maternity leave and statutory maternity pay.
• 2.8 Many pregnant women on ordinary maternity leave are entitled to statutory maternity pay (SMP) of £108.85 (£112.75 from 6 April 2007) or 90 per cent of average pay if lower (see Minimum wage and statutory pay obligations).