While you are on maternity leave, you will likely need to maintain some sort of electronic access to work since email alone will bury you for a month upon re-entry. Specific suggestions for managing email during your maternity leave include:

• Maximize your filter settings.
• Unsubscribe from some or all listserves.
• Have an administrative person screen your email and delete junk mail.
• Have an administrative person respond for you.
• Identify a colleague who can respond for you.
• Set up an auto-reply message so that people who contact you are aware that you are away and are not expecting to hear from you. Example message: “Dr. X is on maternity leave and is not checking e-mail nor is she available by phone or pager. Please note, this message will not be received. For clinical issues, please call the clinic directly at this phone #. For administrative issues, please contact Administrator Y at this #/this email. Dr. X will return to the office on Date Z.”
• List a return date in your message that is one or two weeks after your actual return date.
• Check your email once a week and not more frequently (unless you have specifically negotiated differently, of course).