Pregnancy and breastfeeding

If an employee is pregnant or breastfeeding, the work environment must be examined and a reviewed or a new risk assessment carried out. The employer is responsible for ensuring that this risk assessment is carried out.

The Swedish Work Environment Authority's regulation on pregnant and breastfeeding employees, regulates the work that can be carried out by pregnant and breastfeeding employees. The purpose of this regulation is to prevent women who are pregnant, breastfeeding or have recently given birth from being exposed to conditions in the workplace that could cause risk of ill health or accidents. If the results show that there are risks, measures must immediately be taken to eliminate these risks. If the risks cannot be eliminated, the employer must take all reasonable and feasible measures to give the employee alternative work tasks.

A pregnant or breastfeeding employee may not be given work that is considered risky. To prevent harmful exposure, some work is prohibited for pregnant women. For example, a pregnant employee may not risk being exposed to rubella or Toxoplasma gondii in her work (AFS 2018:4 Infection Risks,  with violation subject to a penalty of SEK 400,000). The zika virus can cause foetal harm, and pregnant women must not work with this virus. There are some infectious agents besides those that it forbidden to work with that can pose a potential risk during pregnancy (for example, see AFS 2018:4). This should be taken into consideration in the risk assessment.

There are radiation exposure limits for work involving ionising radiation (the equivalent radiation dose to the fetus must not exceed 1 mSv during the remaining pregnancy after the employee has notified the employer of his pregnancy).  Staff working with ionising radiation have an obligation to report pregnancy or breastfeeding at an early stage. The employer is required to inform the staff of this obligation.

Moreover, pregnant or breastfeeding women must not be exposed to lead compounds, CMR substances and carbon monoxide, and there are also restrictions on work with organic solvents (primarily high exposure), mitosis-inhibiting cytostatics, etc. See AFS 2007:5.

An employee who is pregnant or has given birth within the last 14 weeks is not permitted to perform night work if she has presented a medical certificate stating that such work would compromise her health or safety. The work of pregnant or breastfeeding employees must be organised in a way that makes it possible for them take a brief rest lying down under suitable conditions in the workplace.