There seems to be a lot of chatter about traveling while expecting, especially now that Disney Cruise Lines came forward with a new policy geared towards pregnant passengers. For the most part, policy or no policy, I think deciding when or when not to take a trip comes down to common sense – only do what you feel is right for your body and situation.
I personally chose to continue traveling extensively throughout my pregnancy because I felt good, had plenty of energy, and made sure I was taking good care of myself on the road. I knew in my heart to taper down my flying days well before the 36-week mark that most airlines have in place as a “no-fly” period.
However, when Justin at InACents.com shot me tweet the other day asking for my opinion about the new policy, I realized just how opinionated I was about this…
I invite you to check out my guest post on family blog, InACents.com to hear my thoughts about this new 24-week policy and to learn a bit about how I handled traveling while pregnant.
What are your thoughts? Did you (or your wife, girlfriend, baby mama) travel while pregnant? Why or why not? I’m excited for a nice Friday-morning discussion!
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I personally think it is a good policy. You are in the middle of the ocean without an ob readily available if god for bid something happened. I know people who at 24-30 weeks had scares (with no prior issues) and it absolutely would not have been a good situation if they were on a cruise. A cruise is just not equipped to help in those situations, so I think it is fine for them to make that known. Of course, if you really want to go, the cruise line won’t stop you as they will have no idea you are pregnant. I believe many of the cruise lines have similar policies.
I traveled during both my pregnancies, but not in the last trimester. Good thing, since both times I looked ready to go to full term until the day I had the baby…6 weeks early with one and 4 weeks early with the other!
I’m admittedly not a cruiser, but my impression is that this isn’t new to cruise lines, though maybe it is new to this cruise line. I’m with Deals We Like on this one. I also traveled pregnant, and even flew at 36 weeks (to a funeral on a 40 minute flight), but would never consider being away from almost immediate medical care past 24 weeks. At around 24 weeks your baby has a shot at survival if delivered, assuming immediate NICU care, and as a result I would never put myself somewhere that couldn’t be obtained very quickly. Even if I felt great pregnant, and I did, once I was pregnant life was no longer 100% about me. It was about making the best choices for my (unborn) kid. That meant no countries where the hospitals weren’t up to par, no time in the middle of the ocean, etc.
As a mom in my mid-30’s I have seen too many of my friends go from totally normal pregnancies to very very early deliveries in a heartbeat. Many of their babies are able to survive even with a very early delivery because of immediate NICU support. You won’t have that on a cruise at some of the ports or in the middle of the ocean.
In general, I don’t like limitations on parents, kids, or pregnant moms, but this one makes perfect sense to me.
Back in 1993 we flew from Germany to Charlotte with the DW being 8 months pregnant. Had to go because we were moving back to the States. Scary part was she had pretty hard preterm contractions starting at 5 months and she was on medication to stop them. Her OB doc saw her the day before our flight and gave her a thumbs up to fly. He told her to have a (1) glass of wine on the flight to relax her uterus. To make it easier I got a room at the Frankfurt Sheraton so we would not have to get up early and travel to Frankfurt.
Everything went of just fine and in early January they took her off of her meds. She then proceeded to go to full term.
My wife and I both traveled up until 8 months with both pregnancies (she felt good and lead a healthy lifestyle), including a short cruise to Mexico. Yes, I agree that some people might be scared to not be able to have access to the most immediate care if something should go wrong onboard, but when I showed my wife this post she also agreed with Angelina. Too many people live fearful lives “what if this” “what if that” JUST ENJOY, people! Enjoy pregnancy and have faith in the best. To me it is crazy that a 24 week pregnant woman would be denied boarding but a 500 pound morbidly obese person can cruise as they please, which is clearly more dangerous and poses MUCH greatest health risks overall. Thanks for being a fearless road warrior, Angelina. Your posts are refreshing.
As a pediatrician, I just want to second everything that Mommypoints said and to add one other point. It is important to recognize that if you happen to deliver a premature baby or baby needing NICU services out of town, you may be looking at an extended stay whereever you were traveling. When I worked in the NICU we would have babies from out of town that stayed for 1-2 months espicially around the holidays because people like to travel. That being said, noone has a crystal ball. Listen to your body and hope/pray/prepare.
I’m not a medical professional so I have no opinion on whether the policy is medically reasonable, but you have the rest of your life to go on cruises so why risk it for the few months that you are pregnant (even if the risk is small)? You have several decades ahead of you for cruising if desired. For a totally discretionary trip, it’s just not worth risking a lifetime of health complications to your child (and yourself) should something happen.
You couldn’t pay me to go on a cruise ship while pregnant! Among other things because of the food borne illness thing you mentioned, and God forbid if something should happen you’re stuck…so I PERSONALLY don’t really have any issue with that policy.
That said, I traveled quite a bit while pregnant up until a month before my due date (my son was born 2 weeks early). At that point my doctor didn’t exactly say “NO” (I don’t like that word), he just started to write me referrals for an OB in Maui just in case…and I took the hint. I went to Mexico at 4 months and Hong Kong/Thailand at about 6 months with no issue other than having to pee like every 15 minutes on the flight home (you other mommies know what I’m talking about!) 3 weeks after I had him I was back on the ski slopes.
I think it is important to be yourself and stick to the things you love both while pregnant and after as a mom. Kids change a lot but they don’t change everything! If you feel up to it, by all means travel the world! At the same time it’s always important to listen to your body and do what feels right. What works for one person might not work for someone else and ultimately its up to you to determine whats right for you and your situation.
I traveled extensively with both my pregnancies (including flying up until 34 weeks with Baby #1 and 30 weeks with Baby #2), but I have to agree the cutoff should be sooner when it comes to cruises. You can always land an airplane fairly quickly if there is an emergency (even overseas flights would only be a few hours from land), but you can really be stranded days from land on a ship. All the cruise lines I’ve ever gone on have had a 24 week policy in place, so maybe this is just new to Disney. I think 24 weeks is probably a bit early though (I’d probably advocate for 28), at least when it comes to shorter cruises that simply island hop through the Caribbean or skip down a coastline.
For me, the hardest and most frustrating thing about cruise line policies is that they don’t give you your money back if you have to cancel a cruise because you are too late into pregnancy. And very few travel insurance policies will cover cancellation for the reason of simply being pregnant. Many people often plan cruises a year or more in advance, and this is hard to do when you don’t know when you are going to get pregnant! When my husband and I were trying for Baby #2, we found navigating the timing issue more than a little difficult for us. After all, you can time a cruise but you can’t time when you will get pregnant. So it probably has kept the cruise lines from getting some of our money because we didn’t want to risk it — which seems silly from a business perspective.
People in life have different risk tolerances. If the baby was born on land or on a boat the baby is premature nonetheless. It would have happened either way. I know the disenting opinion would be Disney has costs and helicopters would fly in, food borne illnesses etc etc I am aware of the risks. People live their lives with restrictions they either self impose or are imposed by society. Find your own truths whatever they may be. 24 weeks is a risk we are willing to take. If Disney said 20 weeks or 30 weeks I am sure they would have convinced many people to observe the rules and then this conversation would have been about their 20 week policy or 30 week policy. I prefer to police myself and live the way that feels right. 24 weeks on a disney cruise feels wrong. Maybe my opinion is subjective but I prefer to have a subjective opinion than an opinion that I feel may not be my own aka “just listening to a policy and agreeing with it”. Rules will change and this one I think may be amended over time. Before this rule there was no 24 week rule. There was no conversation about this before the rule was enacted.
I traveled extensively as well with both my pregnancies, and into the third trimester with both (and happened to go 15 days late with both although I obviously didn’t know that!). I don’t have a problem with travel as long as your provider is okay with you traveling, but I agree that a cruise would make me nervous. I wouldn’t like the fact of being in the middle of nowhere, as well as the fact that norovirus seems to run pretty rampant on a lot of cruises. I know it isn’t all of them, but enough to make me wary!