Pregnant and Breastfeeding Employees: Prohibited Work and Rights

OHS for pregnant employees: the first steps after notification

Most of the rules on occupational health and safety for pregnant employees are collected in a single regulation: the Regulation on the Working Conditions of Pregnant or Breastfeeding Women, Breastfeeding Rooms and Childcare Centres (Official Gazette 16.08.2013, issue 28737). The regulation applies to every workplace that employs women within the scope of Law No. 6331 on Occupational Health and Safety; the hazard class and the number of employees make no difference.

The process is triggered by notification. Under the regulation, a "pregnant employee" is an employee who informs her employer of her pregnancy with a document obtained from any healthcare provider; a "breastfeeding employee" is an employee who uses nursing leave and informs the employer of this (Art. 4). The employee informs her employer when she becomes pregnant and when she starts breastfeeding (Art. 6/1). On the day the notification arrives you should:

1. Take the document and pass it to the workplace physician confidentially, so that it goes into the personal health file.
2. List the work the employee actually does, her shift and the substances she uses.
3. Plan a pregnancy-specific assessment with the workplace physician and the OHS specialist.
4. If there is an obvious risk until the assessment is completed (e.g. night shift, heavy loads, radiation), temporarily withdraw the employee from that work.
5. Explain the result and the measures taken to the employee; the regulation explicitly requires this (Art. 6/4).

Risk assessment for pregnant employees, step by step

The employer assesses the effect of chemical, physical and biological agents and work processes regarded as hazardous for pregnant or breastfeeding employees. The nature, level and duration of exposure are examined against the agents and working conditions in Annex II and Annex III of the regulation. Psychosocial and medical factors that affect the employee personally are also taken into account (Art. 6/2-3). In other words, this is not a copy of the general risk assessment, but a study specific to that person and that stage of pregnancy.

If the assessment shows a risk, Art. 7 of the regulation sets the following order:

1. Change the conditions or hours. Working conditions and/or hours are temporarily changed so as to prevent exposure.
2. If adaptation is not possible, move her to other work. The employer takes the necessary steps to transfer the employee to other work.
3. If a medical report requires it, assign lighter work. The pregnant employee is given lighter work suited to her health and her pay is not reduced.
4. If a transfer is not possible either, at the employee's request she is treated as being on unpaid leave for as long as her health requires. This period is not counted towards annual leave.

The "Health Monitoring Form for Pregnant Employees" in Annex III is a good summary of what to look for on site: morning sickness and early working hours, standing or sitting for long periods, frequent need for the toilet, a work area that becomes cramped as body size increases, postures requiring reaching and bending, manual handling, overtime, evening or night work, and wet, slippery floors. For the psychosocial load, our guide to psychosocial risk factors will also help.

What work can a pregnant employee not do?

Annex I of the regulation lists general and specific measures, while Annex II lists the work and workplaces in which pregnant employees specifically may not be employed. The headings met most often on site are:

Annex II also lists the workplaces that are risky in terms of biological agents one by one: human healthcare and dental treatment units and emergency and rescue services (hepatitis B and C), children's hospitals and wards (measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox and the like), infectious disease wards and stool laboratories, tuberculosis and chest disease hospitals, pathology units, and veterinary work with animals suspected of rabies. In healthcare facilities this list is the starting point for duty planning.

For chemicals, the regulation allows one exception: if it is unavoidable and the substance cannot be replaced by a less harmful one, work is possible with every precaution taken and exposure kept under constant control. However, for pregnant employees this exception does not cover mutagenic and reprotoxic substances. You can tell which substances fall into this class from the hazard statements in section 2 of the safety data sheet; for details see our guide to working with chemical substances. Separately, Art. 72 of Labour Law No. 4857 prohibits the employment of women of any age in underground and underwater work such as mines, sewers and tunnel construction.

Night work and daily hours for pregnant employees

There are two separate rules on night work (Art. 8):

• Women employees cannot be made to work at night from the date their pregnancy is confirmed by a medical report until the birth.
• An employee who has recently given birth may not work at night for one year after the birth. After this period, she is also not employed at night for any further period in which a medical report finds it harmful to her health.

In working life, "night" is the period that starts no later than 20:00, lasts until 06:00 at the earliest and is no longer than 11 hours (Labour Law No. 4857 Art. 69). In a three-shift plant, the 16:00–24:00 shift is therefore partly night work; check the hours before putting a pregnant employee on this shift. Annex I also requires measures so that the pregnant employee's work does not fall in the early hours of the day.

The daily limit is clear: a pregnant or breastfeeding employee may not work more than 7.5 hours a day (Art. 9). Remove these employees automatically from overtime plans.

Examination frequency and the role of the workplace physician

The Regulation on Workplace Physicians and Other Health Personnel lists pregnant and breastfeeding women among the "groups requiring special policies" and gives the physician the duty of closely monitoring and protecting these employees (Art. 9). Periodic examinations are repeated at least every six months for child, young and pregnant employees; the physician may shorten this interval if necessary. The 1-, 3- and 5-year intervals that apply to other employees are covered in our guide to periodic examinations.

Two further provisions are often overlooked in practice:

• Leave for examinations: A pregnant employee is given paid leave for her periodic check-ups during pregnancy (Art. 11).
• Return-to-work report: Before a breastfeeding employee returns to work at the end of maternity leave, a report establishes that nothing prevents her from working; she may not be employed in work or for hours found to be harmful (Art. 12).

In our workplace physician service, when a pregnancy is reported we carry out the assessment jointly with the physician and the specialist, and put the six-monthly examination dates and the post-birth return-to-work examination in the calendar. If you prefer to track the dates yourself, you can use the OHS calendar tool.

Maternity leave, nursing leave and the breastfeeding room

Art. 74 of Labour Law No. 4857 applies to maternity and nursing leave (regulation Art. 10). The current version of the article is as follows:

Nursing leave is not used during the part-time working period; if the employee chooses part-time working, the nursing leave provisions do not apply during that time.

The regulation also imposes facility requirements: workplaces with 100–150 women employees, regardless of age and marital status, set up a breastfeeding room no more than 250 metres from the workplace; workplaces with more than 150 women employees set up a childcare centre for children aged 0–6. When counting, all of the employer's workplaces within the same municipality and its adjacent area are counted together; a shared room or centre may be set up, or an agreement made with authorised childcare centres (Art. 13).

Common mistakes

In production plants in Bursa and the surrounding provinces, these are the gaps we see most often after a pregnancy is reported:

• The general risk assessment is not revised after the pregnancy is reported, and there is no written person-specific assessment.
• A pregnant employee working in a noisy department is simply given earplugs instead of being moved. The regulation explicitly prohibits this.
• The bonus-based pay of an employee moved to light work is reduced.
• No report is obtained before the employee returns to work after maternity leave.
• Periodic examinations are left on the same cycle as other employees, i.e. once a year or less often.

For a detailed noise assessment, see our guide to the noise regulation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What work can a pregnant employee not do?

The regulation prohibits work involving vibration and jolts, noisy environments above 80 dB(A), ionising radiation, work where group 2–4 biological agents pose a risk, mutagenic and reprotoxic chemicals, and manual handling that would affect her health. Other work is decided by a person-specific assessment.

Can a pregnant employee work night shifts?

Once the pregnancy is confirmed by a medical report, she cannot be made to work at night until the birth. Night work is prohibited for one year after the birth; after that, she is also not employed at night for any period a medical report finds harmful.

How many hours a day is nursing leave?

A woman employee with a child under one is given a total of 1.5 hours of nursing leave a day. The employee decides at what times and in how many parts it is used, and the time counts as part of daily working hours.

How often is a pregnant employee's periodic examination carried out?

At least every six months, regardless of the workplace's hazard class. The workplace physician may shorten this interval depending on the course of the pregnancy and the nature of the work.

If we move a pregnant employee to other work, does her pay go down?

No. The pay of a pregnant employee moved to lighter work because a medical report requires it cannot be reduced. If no suitable work can be found and the employee wishes, she can be treated as being on unpaid leave for the necessary period.