I am in final year of my PhD and pregnant. Baby due before end of funding so will get the 4 months maternity leave from my funding body. Trying to find out if I can claim statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance for the rest of the time ie up to 9 months if that what I want. Anyone have any answers or been through this before? Struggling to find anyone in my uni that can help!!! Thanks

Good luck, but unless you are already a member of staff you will be classed as a student (like undergrads and masters etc), and thus not be eligible for statutory pay (but you should be able to claim child benefit etc).

Hello everyone!

I really need some help...my name's Kate and I'm studying Geography at Southampton University. I've finally made it to my last year and since my friend just gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl, I've decided to do my dissertation on the 2007 Maternity Leave Act and how it affects women returning to work. I really need some mums to fill out my online questionnaire though!!

It takes about 10 minutes, is all completely anonymous and I would be so grateful if you could spare your time to fill it out for me. It's quite an interesting topic to chat about with fellow mums too...is longer maternity leave a good thing or just unncessary?

My only requirements are
a) you're female and have given birth to at least one child (regardless of when)
b) you took maternity leave from work to give birth
c) your worked in the UK

Please click on the link below/copy and paste into your browser to answer the survey!
www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=JxDbmc6JRiTmWieeDrva1g_3d_3d

Thank you so so much! My e-mail is also on the questionnaire if you have any queries, or you can reply on here.

Kate x

hi everybody,

I'm a funded PhD Student and currently is expecting my first baby. Just wonder whether as a PhD students you are given some allowance during your maternity leave or whether like in my case, my funding will be suspended align with my application for suspension of study for maternity reason.

Appreciate if you could share with me your experiences

Cheers

My funding was suspended and I got no maternity allowance. In the end, I had it supended for 2 years (which is the maximum allowed here). I get child benefit, which is not much but very useful. I just had my last funded year so we are back to paying childcare with no grant so I can submit this year. Fortunately my husband can support us but I do feel very guilty at the fact that he is basically paying for me to work :p