Maternity protection: principles your company must respect

As an employer you must carry out a risk analysis and outline a policy about maternity protection. Based on the findings, you should then take the necessary preventive measures. Your external prevention service can help you with the implementation of this risk analysis.

Using the preparatory risk analysis, the occupational physician will determine the most suitable option:

• either adjust working conditions or working hours temporarily;
• or temporarily give the pregnant or breastfeeding employee other tasks to perform.

After you have received the medical certificate of pregnancy from a pregnant employee who is professionally at risk, inform the External Service for Prevention and Protection at Work so that an examination can be carried out. The occupational physician will then provide you and your employee with his or her findings and recommendations.

If, as an employer, you cannot follow the occupational physician’s recommendation, you must notify the health insurance fund and temporarily put the employee on non-active status. The occupational physician issued a certificate either during the consultation or by sending it directly to the employer, which you then fill out. You don’t have to pay the employee a salary, as she can claim a benefit from the health insurance fund.

The health insurance fund also intervenes if your employee, back from maternity leave, also runs risks during the breastfeeding period.

A pregnant employee can refuse night work:

• from eight weeks before the expected delivery date, without a medical certificate;
• always with a medical certificate, up to four weeks after confinement.

The law does not allow for overtime during the pregnancy or breastfeeding period. There are exceptions for staff members in a position of trust or in a managerial position.