Expectant and new mums feeling the heat?

Recent soaring temperatures made life a misery for many workers - with pregnant women feeling the heat more than most. As the UK basked in glorious sunshine, workers across the country clearly struggled to cope in the intense heat.

Usdaw's popular Keep your cool leaflet, which offers tips and guidance on avoiding heat stress at work, has so far been downloaded from the union's website an astonishing 750 times during August alone.

And Usdaw is all too aware that workplace heat problems are 10 times worse for pregnant women.

When pregnant, women tolerate heat less and may more readily faint or be more liable to heat stress. The risk is likely to be reduced after birth but it is not certain how quickly an improvement comes about. Also, breast-feeding can be impaired by heat dehydration.

Many women in Usdaw work in shops and factories without air conditioning and with little ventilation. Many shops do not have awnings to shade the shop-front, as owners are concerned that this will spoil the façade and deter customers. Pregnant women may be working in stores on the checkout situated far away from the front door or in mail order where computer screens simply make the workplace hotter.

Employers have a duty to assess risks to all employees but they have to take particular account of risks to new and expectant mothers. Risks include those to the unborn child/expectant mother or a mother who is breastfeeding.

Employers must carry out a risk assessment. The risks will vary depending on your health and will change depending upon what stage of pregnancy you are at.

Alarmingly, research conducted by Usdaw earlier this year, revealed that fewer than three in 10 pregnant women are given risk assessments at work, despite the legal requirements to do so.

If this risk assessment identifies hazards that could pose a risk to you or your baby, then your employer must do all that they can to eliminate the risk or reduce it to a safe level.

If the risk cannot be removed your employer must take action to protect you and your baby:

• If it is reasonable and it avoids the risk, you have the right to have your working conditions or hours of work temporarily altered.

• If this is not possible, then your employer must offer you suitable alternative work. The work must be on terms and conditions which are no less favourable that your normal conditions of employment.

• If your employer is unable to offer you suitable alternative work, then you have the right to be suspended on full pay for as long as is necessary to avoid the risk. This is known as paid suspension from work.

• At the very least employer’s should provide adequate rest and refreshment breaks alongside unrestricted access to drinking water.

• Your employer should also regularly monitor and review any assessment made to take into account possible risks that may occur at different stages of your pregnancy.

For more information on health and safety matters for pregnant and new mums then download the Maternity Rights Leaflet 1 - Health and Safety from Usdaw’s Maternity Rights Pack. You can also order the leaflet by e-mailing the Stationery Department at Central Office. You might also want to visit the Health and Safety Executive web site as they have a very useful leaflet called A Guide for New and Expectant Mothers who work.

Employers have a duty, under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, to maintain a 'reasonable temperature' in the workplace. Although it doesn't specify temperatures, the Code of Practice says 16ºC, or 13ºC for strenuous physical work, should be the minimum. It offers no maximum. A proposition carried at Usdaw's annual delegate meeting in Blackpool, in April 2004, called for the Government to set a maximum workplace temperature of 27ºC.

Notes to Editors:

• More information and news releases are available at our online Newsroom.

• Journalists can subscribe to receive Usdaw news releases via our online e-news service.

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© 2003 (USDAW) Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers
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