Should Pregnant Travellers?

Pregnant women may of course travel, although there are some special considerations they need to be aware of. Transport Canada recommends pregnant women not to fly domestically (36 weeks) or internationally (32 weeks) as a suggestion to prevent unexpected problems like inevitable birth in flight.

Immunizations are important for all travellers especially for pregnant women. Newborn babies are protected from serious infections from antibodies received from placenta and mother's milk. If the mother is well immunized many of these antibodies are transferred to the baby. Many childhood immunizations are actually timed to be given just as the maternal antibodies start to disappear.

Women should be current with a tetanus shot.

The influenza shot is highly recommended, particularly for women in their second and third trimester.

Other vaccinations may be needed if appropriate to each woman's destination.

The inactivated vaccines-hepatitis A, hepatitis B, inactivated typhoid, tetanus, inactivated polio, may all be safely given in both pregnant and non-pregnant travellers.

The live vaccines, typhoid (oral), chicken pox, measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), cholera (Dukoral™) should not be given to pregnant women. The live vaccine yellow fever is appropriate in admission for pregnant women when needed, while the inactivated Japanese encephalitis vaccine should also not be given.

The immune system changes in pregnancy and for some diseases pregnant women actually get sick easier and more severely such as in hepatitis e (which is transmitted from unclean water) and malaria (from mosquitoes).

The choices available for anti-malarials are more limited for pregnant women in Canada. The anti-malarial medication Chloroquine is safe, but is only useful for specific countries, as the rest of the world has developed resistance to it.

Mefloquine (Larium) is considered safe for the second and third trimester of pregnancy. But specialists who feel that the benefit of preventing malaria outweighs the adverse effects also sometimes use it in the first trimester.

Some countries (such as Northern Thailand and Somalia) have developed resistance to mefloquine. Other anti-malarial medications, such as doxycycline and Malarone™ may be used by other travellers, but not by pregnant women. This means that there really is no safe and effective malaria prevention for pregnant women going to Northern Thailand. Fortunately, these regions are easily identifiable and travellers can easily plan their trip to avoid these places. Pregnant women travelling away from home for an extended period should have a check up with their physician before leaving.

Sometimes appropriate antibiotics may be prescribed in advance along with a urine dipstick kit. Women can determine themselves if they have a bladder infection which is essential to treat in pregnancy.

As at home, not all medications are considered safe in pregnancy and travellers are cautioned against naturopathic or homeopathic remedies, which may contain unknown active ingredients.

Pregnant women can safely travel for work and vacation but have to plan their trip with two passengers in mind.