Gender and maternity considerations and techniques in occupational health services: The Spanish case

• How OHS deals with gender considerations in situations of pregnancy and breast-feeding.
• Growing perception among OHS concerning the labor risks connected to a gender consideration.
• Less perception concerning the awareness of risks to reproduction for both women and men.
• Fails the procedure in force to initiate the adoption of measures can delay those measures.
• Absence of coordination between prevention technicians and company doctors.

This qualitative paper shows the lack of gender considerations that the Spanish prevention service technicians demonstrate in their evaluations, namely, in the maternity or breast-feeding states of female employees. Likewise, it offers courses of action for the improvement of the activity developed by these services with the aim of improving the preventive practices and, therefore, the work safety and health of vulnerable groups, as is the case of women who are pregnant or breast-feeding.It is framed within the processes of qualitative research based on a questionnaire sent to occupational health technicians.This paper is innovative because this gender approach has not been studied empirically. It also makes relevant findings to consider in future developments or organizational policy regarding occupational risks assessment.