The employee’s pregnancy should be ascertained by a medical certificate. The employer is obliged to grant pregnant employees leave from work for medical examinations recommended by a doctor in connection with pregnancy if these examinations cannot be performed outside working hours. The employee retains the right to remuneration for the time of absence from work for that reason.

Pregnant women and women who are breastfeeding may not perform strenuous, hazardous or harmful work that may adversely affect their health, the course of their pregnancy or the breastfeeding of their child.

A list of such types of work is included in the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of 3 April 2017 on the List of the Types of Work That Are Strenuous, Hazardous or Harmful for the Health of Pregnant or Breastfeeding Women (Journal of Laws of 2017, item 796).

These types of work include work:

• involving excessive physical effort, including manual handling of loads;
• which may have an adverse effect due to the manner and conditions of its performance, taking into account the nature of the factors present in the working environment and the level of their occurrence.

An employer who employs a pregnant or breastfeeding employee to perform work forbidden to such an employee, regardless of the degree of exposure to factors that are harmful to health or hazardous, is required to:

• transfer the employee to another job;
• or, if this is not possible, release her – for the time necessary – from the obligation to perform work.

An employer who employs a pregnant or breastfeeding employee to perform a type of work that is strenuous, hazardous or harmful to health is required to:

• adjust working conditions to the requirements set out in the legal regulations; or
• reduce working time to eliminate risks to the employee’s health or safety.

If it is impossible or inappropriate to adjust working conditions at the existing workplace or to reduce working time, the employer is required to:

• transfer the employee to another job;
• or, if this is not possible, release the employee – for the time necessary – from the obligation to perform work.

These obligations also apply to the employer if medical restrictions to the performance of the previous work by a pregnant or breastfeeding employee are stated in a medical certificate.

The employer who hires an employee to work at night is required to change the employee’s working time schedule for the duration of her pregnancy so that it is possible for the employee to perform work outside night hours.

Where this is impossible or inappropriate, the employer is required to transfer the employee to another job, one which does not require working at night.

However, if this is impossible, the employer is required to release the employee – for the time necessary – from the obligation to perform work.

The employee is entitled to a compensatory allowance if their remuneration is reduced due to:

• a change in working conditions in the position previously held;
• reduction of working time; or
• transfer of the employee to another job.

During the period of release from the obligation to perform work, the employee retains the right to their previous remuneration.

Pregnant employees must not be employed:

• for overtime;
• at night.

Pregnant employees must not be, without their consent:

• posted outside their regular place of work;
• employed in intermittent working time.