When to tell work your pregnant?

[she.lpn]

I'm sure this has been asked before but was unable to find it in my search.

So my question is I work on a busy med-surg floor lots of MRSA, VRE, C-diff and any other infectious disease you can think of. when should I inform work I'm pregnant? I'm approx. 5 weeks first appointment is not until April 6th, Just kind of worried about exposure to the nasty bugs I had a miscarraige 6 months ago and well I'm just a little nervous. thanks for any info you can give!

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

My previous job required that women inform the company of their pregnancy before they reached the second trimester. Basically, women had about 3 months to divulge that they were expectant moms.

If women waited longer than 3 months to reveal their pregnancy, the company would ensure that the health insurance would not pay for the baby's delivery.

[MissJoRN, RN]

Nursing is a little weird, isn't it!? All the parenting message boards and articles are geared toward the corporate world and when to disclose. Unfortunately, my nurse manager was the seond person I told, just a few days after hubby! My friends didn't know, my parents didn't know, but my boss knew! (I wanted to wait quite a while before teliing everyone else) That was for my OR job, because of exposeure to chemicals and radiation. I felt it was in baby's best interest the tell them ASAP, but it was a while before my co-workers knew... when I told them... everything was done quietly by management. I also felt that if the worst happened and I did have a miscarriage, I would probably disclose that anyway to my manager. "I have lifting limitations because... I missed work because..."

My other nursing job has no toxic or radiation contact and I waited a while to tell them... when i could hide the nausea no longer, not sure when. As far as the resistant bugs, I'm not on top of that. I avoided them in the OR as much as possible and gave location of the bug some consideration. ex- no resp MRSA, but I'll do an infected foot ulcer following precautions. like I said radiation was my big worry.

What does your OB have to say about the nasties you might work with? If they want you to avoid them then I'd inform the nurse manager but let her know you'd like to keep it confidential, if possible. When I worked on the floor (peds) we grouped assignments anyway. Nurses either got the clean group (post-ops, orthos, etc) or the dirty group (rota, MRSA, RSV) even though that meant your patients weren't close together. Hopefully you do that too so no-one will notice you always take a clean group, since you aren't trading specific rooms.

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

My previous job required that women inform the company of their pregnancy before they reached the second trimester. Basically, women had about 3 months to divulge that they were expectant moms.

If women waited longer than 3 months to reveal their pregnancy, the company would ensure that the health insurance would not pay for the baby's delivery.

That's disgusting. It sounds like that would be illegal somehow.

We seem to be the only country on the planet that treats pregnant women as though they have some sort of disorder (isn't it covered as a DISABILITY for the purposes of discrimination?).

Disgusting.

ETA - I guess it has to do with MRSA, chemicals, etc., which I didn't think about at first, but it still borders on a bit nasty, you know?

[TazziRN, RN]

As soon as possible, for the baby's safety. You can ask that your supervisor keep it quiet if possible, if you don't want your coworkers to know yet, but the first trimester is the most fragile for baby's development.

[Burnt Out, ASN, RN]

I usually tell my manager and my charge nurses first so that if something happens they have a heads up.

[PamUK]

If women waited longer than 3 months to reveal their pregnancy, the company would ensure that the health insurance would not pay for the baby's delivery.

Sounds incredibly illegal... sex discrimination, I would suggest. And what would happen if you didn't know before the second trimester... happens all the time. I saw a teenager in labour (in fact the baby's head was crowning) denying she was pregnant and counting (I'm not sure that counting is the correct teminology), very calmly, on her rosary beads! Then her father (who arrived following our phone call to get here ASAP) had the bloody cheek to say we had planted the baby on her!! Incredible! Slightly dysfunctional family methinks.

But, personally, I would tell my supervisor ASAP, then you can take extra special care not to harm the baby