Travel in pregnancy

Abstract 

Pregnancy should not be ‘medicalized’, yet there are increased risks and special precautions that pregnant women should take, especially when travelling to resource-poor regions. The risk of thrombosis is significantly increased in pregnancy and this risk is further magnified by long-haul flights. Complications that occur after arrival in an unfamiliar destination may lead to limitation or delayed access to adequate care even where it is available. Some women will choose to travel to very remote and resource-poor destinations where medical care is not accessible at all or where there is risk of acquiring infections during surgical procedures. Facilities to ventilate premature babies are not available everywhere either. Pregnant women are at increased risk of dying from malaria should they acquire the disease yet, particularly amongst well-read lay people, there can be a reluctance to take antimalarial tablets or to apply insect repellents. All these issues need to be considered and addressed within the pre-travel consultation with a pregnant woman and also with women who are intending to conceive while on their travels. This is despite the fact that medical advisors may learn about travel plans when they are already well advanced and when changes or even cancellation can be difficult. Finally, we should remind women that pregnancy is often excluded from travel insurance policies; it must be specifically mentioned and sometimes a special policy needs to be taken out.

Keywords:  pregnancy , travel , thrombosis , malaria , prophylaxis , mefloquine , hepatitis E , altitude

No full text is available. To read the body of this article, please view the PDF online.