Can a newborn travel in a car?

If you can get a closer hospital I'd do that but assuming there are rural reasons and complex pregnancy reasons why you can't. Then it's take as many breaks as possible.

Technically you should stop every 30mins even if it's just 5min.

I'd likely push the boundaries on time and aim for 3 stops and stop every 50mins but a decent 30min stop rather than a snatched 5-10 mins in a lay by.

Overall It sounds torturous for all of you and the journey will take a lot longer than 2.5hrs. Even with 3 stops at 50mins that's taking the journey to nearly 5 hours.

It must be at least 15 minutes since anyone asked why you've chosen a hospital so far away. We're doing well to have reached this point!

There are many countries where living rural is a 3-4 hour drive from nearest hospital,your baby will be fine !

It’s max 30 mins (ideally per day) for a newborn in a car seat, even lie flat ones. It does increase to 45 mins but I can’t remember when. You’ll find midwives and HV all give different advice! I had one tell me 90 mins was the limit and another 30 mins! But in your situation there isn’t much you can do, you have to get home! I would definitely drive - couldn’t have imagined getting a train 3 days after my planned section. Plan to stop every 20 mins or so for at least 15 mins. If you can sit in the back with baby to keep an eye on them then even better, or if not then get a mirror (I physically couldn’t get into the back seat of our car after my section, it’s much lower than the front and more cramped, so it was too uncomfortable, so I had to sit in the front seat). We did a 2.5hr car journey with DS when he was 2 weeks old as I needed to go and stay with my mum, and we stopped at least 3 times for about 20-30 mins each, fed and changed baby, let him lie flat in the pram bassinet etc and it was fine. We live 2 hours away from any family so we did that journey a few times during the first few months and we always just were extra cautious.

Yes but please get a lie flat seat or as close to that as you can get to it. Scbu recommended it to me for safety reasons when I was due to take DC2 home.

Yes they can travel but with plenty of breaks. A compromise would be to get something similar to an air bnb near by for the checks ( up to 10 days unless your local team will support those) and then as already mentioned, no longer than 30 mins in the car then a think a 20 minutes break so you’ll have to split that journey

How many women live within 30 minutes of a maternity unit?

So how did babies get home before these guidelines?
Somehow, they survived.

There are so many dos and don'ts in babyhood. You have to trust your own judgement based on the advice. It's impossible to stick to all rules by the letter. You have to think what works for you too.

In this case, if you want, you can get a lie flat newborn car seat. You'll probably get a fair bit of use from it.

Have you looked at lie flat car seats?

These can be used for longer periods.

We had a maxi cosi jade as its lay flat, we had to make regular 2-3 hour car journeys with our daughter, she was premature so really her first one was technically at 2.5 weeks old. Unlike other it is completely flat, where as others are just almost flat. If you remove the harness and head thing bit its also a sleepsafe carry cot.

Not your situation but some parallels.

I'm a foster carer and at some training we had a court guardian (independent person not SS) came to talk to us. She was in charge of ensuring children/ babies and parents had appropriate family time (contact).

This included newborns and when she said they shouldn't be transported in a car seat for more than 30 mins to attend family time carers who fostered babies laughed!
She was stunned that many were in cars for an hr/2hrs etc several times a week. She said that expected practice was babies souldnt NOT be in a car seat for more than 30 mins at a time and the courts /SS should NOT be agreeing to this.
I don't foster babies, but that fact has always stayed with me.

I would use the car rather than a train as uou have more control. Stop regularly and take baby OUT of the seat allowing them to stretch right out.
Good luck!!

OP get the maxi cosi 360 pebble, it’s lie flat so you can keep newborn in there longer - the swivel option is also really really handy and I have used much more than I expected!

Please don’t do this, a newborn should not be in the car seat for more than 3 mins so you must stop this often

We had a lie flat car seat/carry cot for long journeys. It clipped into our pram as well so baby was easily transported.

My son was born in Pembrokeshire and when we were discharged we had to travel home to Bristol, so in the region of a 4 hour journey (pre motorway). He was in his carrycot (remember those?) the whole way and it was fine. Never actually gave it much thought at the time.

The guidance changes constantly - I live rurally and had an hour drive to hospital- back then (14 years ago) there was no guidance u was aware of any they were fine.

However, you can always stop / cuddle and feed etc. you may also struggle being seated so long after a recent birth so have a look at at stops on the way back with nice facilities if there are any.

Also if you live rurally I recommend you have all the numbers for out of hours pharmacies / walk in centres and late night shops where you can buy nappies etc if you accidently run out.

I’m not sure what point you’re making, the vast vast majority of women don’t give birth 2.5-3 hours from home. 1 hour away is hardly comparable.

what public transport options do you have? we took the overground train home from the hospital with our newborn recently - we don't have a car and i didn't feel confident putting the car seat into a taxi !

but if you have to drive just sit in the back with the baby and stop when you need to

Sit in the back with them - my newborn went blue after only ten minutes in a car seat. They were absolutely healthy, born at term, no issues etc. Thankfully we were in an ambulance with a midwife with us (transfer after homebirth for me) and we're able to stop and get her out. Thinking about what might have happened if she travelled alone in the back of the car with my partner driving to the hospital still keeps me up at night.

What choice do you think people have? My nearest hospital is nearly an hour away, and I'm on the edge of a major city. What about people who are more rural?

I don't think our IQs have suffered due to oxygen deprivation! And if they did I feel this would have been studied. I think the risk is for babies that would otherwise spend hours and hours daily in a carseat

Although babies are better off not being squished, I wish I had thought of the concept of lie flat car seats at £300 a pop, and the wheeze that you can’t possibly use a second hand car seat.

🙄

As a middle ground, what about an AirBnB? Choose one that's a nice home from home environment where you can make your own food/drinks whenever you like.

That said, in terms of the baby travelling, a few days won't make a difference to how they'll manage the journey, so this is only more of a comfort for you.

I've never had a baby and never will and all the babies I've known were at least 10 years ago, so the whole concept of a lay flat car seat has blown my mind! Such a good idea, especially as you can then use it indoors too, without necessarily waking baby up to put them in/out of the car - just undo the straps indoors. Amazing!

If you can do the train, this would probably be better. Newborns can go in the car but advice is no longer than every half hour so your journey would take a lot longer.