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Hello all,

I am 13 weeks pregnant, I am not currently working and I am receiving job seekers allowance, I have not worked since April 2009 when my 1st baby was born, and have been receiving JSA since February 2010  does anyone know whether I would be entitled to Maternity Allowance. I have always worked , this is all very new to me.

Thank you

Hi there, I was in the same situation as i lost my job last year and had to claim JSA and just started on maternity allowance. If you get the maternity allowance claim form from the job centre it includes a little booklet which has what they call the "test period" it lets you calculate whether you would be entitled to maternity allowance as you must of worked so many weeks out of the last year.

Hope this helps, Good luck

To add on the last comment, you need to of worked 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks that are in your test period. Your test period is 66 weeks before the week the baby is due.

Even if you have worked for years before that it wont count. I nearly lossed out to my maternity allowance because i was two weeks off the 26 weeks period, luckly i found a months work so now im just waiting to hear back from them.

Even though you may send your claim off early i was told when i rang up they wont look at it until your due to get your money...Its a right pain!

Hope this has helped, i feel an expert over this subject seein as i ring them all the time !

hiya there

i dont know if your on jsa if your entitled to maternity allowance, but i have been working for a company since febuarty and im 30 weeks pregnant and only found out 2 weeks ago that i wasnt entitled to smp so had to apply for maternity allowance but im due to finish work in less than a month and im worried that i wont get maternity allowance is there any other pregnancy grants i can claim if i dont get this one?