AIBU Worrying About Visitors From Abroad Spreading Germs To A Newborn

[Newmumtobe87]

Context: I'm pregnant with my first child. My mother-in-law lives abroad. We've already had some difficulty with her not respecting my visitors boundaries with the newborn when I asked her not to book flights too close to my due date, because you never know when the baby's going to arrive. She went ahead and did it anyway, so if I go to 42 weeks, she'll arrive in the country 6 days post-birth. And was planning on staying in our house (despite me saying that's not going to be possible. She now isn't staying with us. But that's another story).

Main query is that I'm now really worried that she and her husband will catch something on the plane on the way over and give it to our newborn. I'd ideally like her to not visit for the first 2 days after getting off the plane, so as to avoid her spreading germs. Is that unreasonable?

Dictating anyone's method of transport is flat out nuts.

Agree 🙄Luckily I haven’t come across these special people..thank goodness!
My daughter was very happy to see her brother 24 hours after giving birth and he flew in from China just before COVID got to the UK ! Never crossed our minds to quarantine him and ironically she had her baby at the hospital where COVID was first identified in the UK !

Reports don't vary because air in an aircraft cabin is fully changed through hepa filtering and fresh intake with extract at floor level. Every time air is recirculated it is filtered, with an effective full air change every 3 minutes.

I voted YABU for the infection fears - your baby might catch an infection; we hope not too soon, but babies do catch a lot of germs! It now appears that MIL's disregarding your wishes in general, which is unreasonable of her. You and DH need to put your feet down over the dates.

Ridiculous

You've never caught a cold / cough etc on a plane? According to a study published (Journal of Environmental Health Research) 'you may be 100 times as likely to catch a cold on a plane as in your normal day-to-day life

MAY

Where are you gibing birth, OP?

Well I guess it’s up to you. Personally I had visitors as soon as my babies were born. I don’t really understand why people keep even their family away. Seems like a new thing.

Completely agree. I’ve never across anyone in real life either that keeps people away. It’s all a bit bizzare.

So your own parents will be subject to the same boundaries and not visiting for the first two weeks?

l agree it’s definitely up to the parents but to say they need their head examined is ridiculous. I’ve never met anyone in real life that keeps visitors away.

The thread is a prime example of main character syndrome

Pfb, you will cringe when you look back

you can request what you like, it’s your baby!

however just regarding your point about the first two months, what do you think people with more than one child do? I was out with my newborn soon as I came home from hospital as my toddler still had to go to nursery, to play groups etc.

surely it's normal to want privacy in the first few weeks? with DC1 i spent most of that will my breasts out trying to get her to latch.

I am in a similar position to my the OP in that I have my PIL descending on me 4 weeks after my due date for DC2 and i'm a bit apprehensive about it actually. They'll be staying with us and I do know my boobs will need to be out A LOT so I'll presumably be banished to the bedroom for most of their stay. I think it will be an imposition, even though they are nice people.

Of course you shouldn't be banished to the bedroom to breastfeed!! It's a completely natural thing and you should be free to do it in front of PILs or any guests.

You are totally right of course but they are religious/ conservative / asian so it would be very uncomfortable. Plus bf in the early days is not discreet at all, especially if you are blessed with massive breasts and tiny babies like me! last time i remember waving my nipple in DD's face trying to get her to open her mouth. I wont be doing that in front of the PIL 😆

All of this is why i didn't want them to come until 6 weeks pp but they don't really do boundaries so picked their own dates.

anyway i will figure it out at the time. just wanted to put forward the other perspective that its not overly precious for the mother to want control and privacy over her environment in the pp time. At least not in my opinion.

I would recommend exclusively breastfeeding at this time. Kissing your baby gets the germs they’ve been exposed to into your system, where your immune system takes over and makes antibodies. Those antibodies will be in your breast milk.

I haven’t read the whole thread, but you are being too precious about germs.

What about siblings that go to nursery/school? They are much more likely to be infectious.

Update - they came, went, and we ended up being taken by ambulance to A&E and admitted to high dependency with a 3 week old baby who stopped breathing. Just a warning for all those crying about being ‘precious’

That sounds very distressing, but do you know it was the in-laws doing???

Very sorry that your little one got sick but can happen without visitors from abroad. It's not one = another. How little one is ok now

What was the cause?

I should’ve specified that in my update. No, I don’t think or know it was the in-laws doing. Of course. But I had chosen that I wanted limited visitors in the first few weeks. Just a word of caution for those who argued that baby wouldn’t get sick

Well really there isn’t enough information to know what caused your baby to be unwell..

@Newmumtobe87 how awful. I hope everyone is OK now.

Of course newborns are extremely vulnerable poor little thing.

Of course as babies grow and develop they naturally expose themselves to germs!!

A new born does not.