Holiday abroad in 3rd trimester?!

[nonamemummy]

We have a week holiday to Spain booked. I’ll be 33 weeks pregnant at the time. If you have been on holiday and pregnant at the same time, please tell me your experience. We don’t really want to rearrange it. I’m feeling fine so far and it’s only a few weeks away so fingers crossed

I didn't but my previous boss did.

One thing you need to make sure is that your travel insurance covers birth and infant care. Lots don't or you have to pay extra.

Also, it will be good to get a fit to flight certificate and do check your airline rules as well.

I went at 32 weeks. I needed a letter from my midwife that I wasn’t asked about on the way out but was on the way back. I had DD 2.5 and we went to an all inclusive, we didn’t leave the resort which suited me as I wasn’t very mobile, we would usually explore but I had no inclination to do so! Other than that it was absolutely fine, I wouldn’t have booked knowing I’d be that pregnant but it was fine in the circumstances.

I went to Ibiza at 34 weeks. I had an “easy” pregnancy so it was fine, I just had to take the walking around etc a bit easier and make sure I had plenty of water. It was a nice thing to do as a last hurrah sort of thing with husband.

As pp said check your insurance, there's cut off dates for both insurance and the airline after which you can't fly.

My eldest was born at 33 wks. Complete surprise.
For my second pregnancy we did a UK based holiday. Flying wasn't fun. I was 32 weeks and had clicky hips and pelvis pain. Was also a stupidly hot and in the middle of a heatwave. But I did it and did have a good time mostly.

Pregnancy is strange one minute you can be absolutely fine and the next definitely not fine.

Just make sure ypur paper work is in order and ypu have a plan just in case. Like where the nearest hospital is etc

I have.
But I flew solo at I think 33 weeks back at 35 weeks (I started ntc that night) and it was a 12 hour flight and then an additional hour. I had an easy pregnancy. I would not recommend long haul at that point. It was awful.
It also wasn’t a holiday…
Short haul would have been no issue.

Did it with DC2. It was fine. Flew BA to Europe. Took my notes. No questions asked (as in no one asked to see anything as proof of how pregnant I was). FWIW I was HUGE and had been showing since 8 weeks (not exaggerating, a midwife relative literally came up to me and said “oh you’re expecting again then”). I travelled a few days shy of the cut off.

Check with your airline if they require a fit to fly certificate and your insurance and take your notes.

tbh I would have hated to fly at that stage with my first and with my second I was admitted to hospital by that stage.

All my previous pregnancies have been fine so im hoping this one is the same. I have checked with the airline already, I’ll be getting a fit to fly certificate from my midwife closer to the time and defo will have travel insurance. Glad there hasn’t been any horror stories yet!

I flew out on holiday at 28 weeks and back at 30. I needed a fit to fly letter from my gp for the return flight.
It was short haul to Greece and an uncomplicated third pregnancy and everything was fine.

It was a long time ago now, I remember googling the nearest hospitals just in case but sliding remember being overly worried. Certainly nobody else was.

Make sure you have a GHIC, and look up the nearest public health centre to your accommodation. In any holiday resort there will be signs up with smiling pictures of doctors or nurses, but they are private and your travel insurance may well not cover private treatment for pregnancy-related issues, since it's clearly a pre-existing situation, whereas the GHIC will pay for your treatment in the public health system. If you have an emergency and ask the hotel to call an ambulance or doctor, they will call a private one (because they get commission), so call 112 yourself and get a public ambulance, unless you are 100% sure your insurance will cover it.

Similarly, your travel insurance may not cover incidental expenses for the family, for example if they have to change flights or book additional accommodation if there is a pregnancy-related complication.

If by any chance both you and the baby's father were born outside the UK, and did not become British by naturalisation, then if the baby is also born outside the UK, they will not acquire UK nationality automatically, courtesy of the British Nationality Act 1981. You would have to register the baby under Section 3(2) of that Act. This will probably work, but it will be no fun at all. (As long as one of you was born in the UK, or naturalised to become a British citizen, this won't be a problem, but I thought I'd mention it because a family member got into a bit of a situation around this.)

I flew for work at around that point and took notes and had researched local hospitals, checked insurance etc. because I was rhesus negative, I wanted to make sure I could get anti d if needed and my work insurance would cover. Also make sure you get some flight socks.

I was super careful while I was away and had a lovely time. Day after I got back I had a nasty fall and had to go and get checked out and have anti d…I think id been so careful while I was away that I’d got a bit more blaze when I came home and was rushing about a bit when it was icy.

It was a good reminder that the unexpected can happen anywhere so enjoy yourself but know what your options are if you need medical attention but I’d been so worried about the ‘what if’ while abroad, I’d totally let my guard down when I got home.

I went on holiday to Spain, coming back at 34 weeks with both DD and DS2, it was fine.
As others have said, check your insurance, cut off dates for the airline, and get a fit to fly letter.
I was only asked for the letter once, but it was mid flight, so I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to produce it!

I flew to South of France at 33/34 weeks. Fot a letter of "fit to fly" from GP (lived in UK at the time) and found a local midwife in case it was needed (had a highly monitored pregnancy) and took maternity notes with me. Had a lovely break and just took it easy.

@samarrange A GHIC is not necessarily paying for everything. We had to call an ambulance once and had to pay this ourselves (managed to claim 1/3 back from the NHS but that took a long time).

DD needed a GP visit to change bandages and a antibiotic prescription after initially treated in the A&E - not covered, the surgery (normal public health service one) didn't accept the GHIC. Not a huge bill but still. Again, we claimed back but had to pay upfront.

GHICs aren't covering a return to the UK if you can't fly commercial. They won't cover costs for the mother's stay if the baby is in hospital. I don't even know if the baby's treatment would be covered as it won't have a GHIC.

Far too risky, better pay a premium for a private travel insurance.

Agree completely and also other countries and check in staff can have other rules. The UK may be fine but all it takes is one person abroad to say no. I know of people (two actually including a family member) who wasn’t allowed to fly after 32 weeks back from holiday. I’m not scare mongering but it’s worth considering if this happens again.

I would also ask if you had to go to the hospital how would you feel about giving birth in Spain and being in hospital there. Fine if you are fine but it’s worth thinking about it. Language barriers, issues in potential levels of care. may not care at all about your birthing plan etc. Babies come early and you aren’t that far off.

I think 33 weeks is risky not because of you or danger to the baby but more around the unknowns if you end up needing care.

I had a brilliant holiday to Japan at 26 weeks (so earlier than you asked, but just so you know!)…. But a friend also had a baby very unexpectedly at 31 weeks in France. They had a long NICU stay there, then back on a medical flight (thank god for good insurance!). It was also a total pain for them to get a birth certificate and British passport in time for the flight home.

Im not saying don’t do it, just giving one example of what could happen!

A GHIC is not necessarily paying for everything.

I hope you noticed that at no point did I suggest that a GHIC replaces travel insurance. 🙏 You are absolutely right that the GHIC only covers healthcare, and not knock-on expenses. Specifically, it gives you the same deal as local people, not the "NHS deal abroad". In practice this generally means that you don't get a bill for major things, but not every EU country has 100% free healthcare. For example, in France it costs a state-insured person about €8 to see a doctor, and most people have top-up insurance that pays €7 back — it's actually illegal for an insurer to reimburse the last Euro, as an attempt to dissuade people from visiting multiple GPs to find one who will give them antibiotics for a cold.

Can you mention the names of the countries for the incidents you mentioned? I'm not aware of an EU country where public ambulance rides are billed, and a normal public health clinic ought to accept the GHIC — although the Johnson government's decision to plaster the flag over it instead of keeping the EHIC format and branding doesn't help to make it recognisable 🙄 and a lot of Europeans seem to think that everything went away with Brexit.

I don't even know if the baby's treatment would be covered as it won't have a GHIC.

Yes, it would. Its NHS entitlement begins at birth, and there is no need for the physical GHIC — that just makes proving your rights easier. You can always phone NHS Overseas Healthcare Services and they will sort it out.

@samarrange All of this was in Germany.

We even have EHICs, not GHIC as we are also German nationals.
DH had a very long discussion with the department responsible for billing us for the ambulance, they said they don't accept the EHIC as it's not part of the health service as such, it's emergency department from the county, it may be different in other areas, these departments are are not nationwide regulated but regional.

The issue is that if you are in an area which is not a main tourist destination GHIC rules are not necessarily always known and it can take efforts to get it organised. We speak the language and had issues with another GP in Bavaria one year about a blood test. GPs are independent, so they invoice themselves and don't have a large admin service behind them to sort it out for them, the health insurances are way more complex than one NHS body.
A hospital may be differnt but I think it would be very reluctant to assume GHIC is more than an emergency for a hospital visit.

Ouch, yes, I can imagine that if people don't see a lot of EHICs they will not know what to do with them. And as with a lot of EU regulations and directives, there's what the rules say and there's what you're getting today. If you got a lawyer and read the rules down to the sub-sub-paragraph level you would be in the right, but good luck with that.

On the other hand, I know someone who lives in Spain and gets every medical procedure for her and her DC done on the basis of a GHIC, because the local health centre thinks that the EHIC/GHIC means totally portable healthcare and so they think she is entitled to way more than she actually is. As long as they can tick the box in the computer, they are happy to treat her.

Someone I know who works for the EU told me once about how the EHIC (and S1, for more permanent healthcare) reconciliation are done. Apparently it's an extremely complicated set of bilateral agreements behind the scenes.