New and Expectant Mothers: When Employers Must Carry Out a Risk Assessment

Most workplace risk assessments are generic — they cover a role or a task, not an individual. The duty around new and expectant mothers works differently. It is triggered by a specific individual notifying her employer, in writing, that she is pregnant, has given birth within the previous six months, or is breastfeeding, and from that point the employer has a specific, individual risk assessment to carry out — not simply a reliance on the general workplace risk assessment already in place.

What triggers the duty

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 place a duty on employers to assess risks to new and expectant mothers once formal, written notification has been given. Until that notification is received, the specific individual duty does not arise — the general risk assessment obligations that apply to the whole workforce still apply, but the additional, targeted assessment is triggered by the notification itself. This is why HSE guidance is consistently clear that employees should be encouraged to notify as early as is practical: the protections cannot be applied to a pregnancy the employer does not yet know about.

The duty covers three overlapping periods: pregnancy itself, the six months following childbirth, and for as long as an employee is breastfeeding — which can extend well beyond the six-month point if breastfeeding continues.

What the assessment must actually cover

A new and expectant mothers risk assessment needs to look specifically at hazards that carry a different, often elevated, level of risk for pregnancy, recent birth, or breastfeeding, rather than simply re-running the standard workplace risk assessment. Key areas HSE guidance highlights include:

• Manual handling — physiological changes during pregnancy affect posture, balance, and joint stability, which can change what counts as a safe lifting or carrying task compared with the standard assessment.
• Standing or sitting for long periods — prolonged static postures carry increased risk of fatigue, circulation problems, and musculoskeletal strain during pregnancy.
• Exposure to chemicals, biological agents, and radiation — some substances that are adequately controlled for the general workforce carry specific reproductive or developmental risks that require tighter control or elimination for a pregnant worker.
• Extremes of temperature — pregnant workers can be more susceptible to heat stress, which affects roles involving hot environments or heavy physical exertion.
• Working hours and fatigue — night work, long shifts, and lack of rest breaks may need adjustment where the assessment identifies a risk.

Where a significant risk is identified that cannot be removed through reasonable adjustment to working conditions or hours, the employer must consider offering suitable alternative work on terms that are not less favourable, and if that is not possible, may need to suspend the employee on full pay on health and safety grounds. This sequence — adjust, then offer alternative work, then suspend on full pay as a last resort — is a specific legal order, not a set of options to pick between freely.

Why this catches employers out

The most common gap is not a refusal to act, but a failure to trigger the process at all — line managers who receive informal notice of a pregnancy in conversation, rather than a formal written notification, sometimes assume nothing is required yet, or assume the general workplace risk assessment already covers it. Because the legal duty specifically requires an assessment once written notification is given, an employer that waits for a formal HR process to catch up, rather than acting promptly on receiving notice, is exposed for that gap in the meantime. Building a simple, consistent process — a short form or checklist triggered the moment written notice is received, rather than relying on ad hoc manager judgement — closes this gap far more reliably than training alone.

This risk assessment sits alongside other individual and task-based risk assessment duties employers already run, including manual handling assessments and COSHH exposure controls — reviewing new and expectant mothers risk alongside these, rather than as a separate HR-only process, tends to produce a more complete assessment.

Frequently asked questions

When does the legal duty to carry out this risk assessment start?

Once the employee has notified her employer in writing that she is pregnant, has given birth in the last six months, or is breastfeeding. Informal or verbal notice does not itself trigger the formal duty, which is why encouraging prompt written notification matters.

What must an employer do if a significant risk is identified?

The sequence is to adjust working conditions or hours first; if that is not sufficient, offer suitable alternative work on no less favourable terms; and if neither is possible, suspend the employee on full pay on health and safety grounds as a last resort.

How long does the duty apply for after childbirth?

At least six months following childbirth, and for as long afterward as the employee continues breastfeeding, since breastfeeding is itself a trigger for the assessment.

The new and expectant mothers duty is a good example of a risk assessment that only works if the trigger point is caught reliably — the legal requirements themselves are clear, but they only get applied to employees whose written notification actually reaches the right process. Learnsignal's CPD courses cover UK workplace health and safety compliance across individual and task-based risk assessment categories.