Travelling abroad when pregnant

Lingua Franca

My friend doesn't know anything about flying in pregnancy, she has access to the same peer reviewed studies that your consultant has. I've already asked her to dig out and forward any studies proving or disproving increased risks of miscarriage but it will take her a few days to get back to me.

Googling "does flying when pregnant increase the chances of miscarriage" brings up many reputable medical sources stated that there is no evidence of increased risk of miscarriage.

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/927.aspx?CategoryID=54
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/air-travel-during-pregnancy/AN00398
http://www.babycenter.com.au/x2599/is-it-safe-to-fly-during-pregnancy

Googling "flying while pregnant" brings up a lot of the same links and more all saying the same thing. I've not yet found any link saying that flying is contraindicated during a normal healthy pregnancy.

When I was pregnant with my first child I was told that dyeing your hair could cause birth defects and that eating cooked ham could cause miscarriage.

If we're bringing up anecdotes: My partner is an air traffic controller at a very busy airport and he personally has never had to deal with or witnessed a medical emergency involving a pregnant woman. Heart attacks, asthma attacks and diabetic comas and the like are daily occurances for him since if anyone takes sick on a plane then ATC must be alerted and they have to have an ambulance waiting when the flight arrives. He's a ground controller so that's under his remit. And speaking of diabetes, my type 1 diabetic (ie, not pregnancy related) co worker got the go ahead to travel to Turkey in her second trimester. Due to my job I had to fly a lot while pregnant and did so with the blessing of my medical team.

Everything is risky in some way or another and it's up the individual to weigh up the risks to see if it's worth it. Since the risks of flying are considered negligible in a healthy pregnancy and flying in the second trimester isn't contraindicated I would consider it worth it.

In the case of the OP it reads like you couldn't claim for a check up under your travel insurance but that you could claim for a pregancy related emergency, is that right? You'll be having a check up before you go and can have one when you come back so you should be fine. If you think you might want a check up while you're away you could always try to find out how much it would cost (and if you do please share with us, American health care charges are fascinatingly scandalous!).

holding

Biggest risk I found when flying at 28 weeks was trying to get the flight socks on - you would want to be a yoga instructor to pull on those tight socks with a bump in the way!

January

Mod Note: We cannot give you medical advice here, please speak to your GP or your consultant in hospital. Don't take the advice of women over the internet for something like this, yes many women fly and are fine but you will always have the rare one where a woman gave birth on a plane while they were 30,000 odd feet in the air with no previous complications.