how soon can baby travel to africa?

[missytequila]

We need to plan a trip to see family in west africa... i know i can ask my doctor next week but was just wondering if anyone has experience of this.

How young can a baby fly? I take malaria pills when I go, what do you do about a baby?

Hi i think babies can fly quite early but your main problem is malaria treatment. we took our daughter to nigeria when she was six months. Baby clinic advised we waited until she was a year but that wasn't possible.

No effective malaria treatment avaialable here for under a year. We always take malaraone but they have to be older than 12 months

so we basically mainly stayed indoors during our trip - only went for 5 days - used lots of deet covered mosquito nets and baby mosquito repellants and she was fine.

We lived in W Africa with dc and took ds1 back at 2 weeks old. The flying is not an issue if you feel up to it, the baby just feeds and sleeps.

The baby will be most susceptible to malaria, peak biting of anopheles mosquitoes is between 9pm and 4am, so if you can keep the baby covered in long sleeves/trousers/deet free repellant and under a treated mosquito net that will reduce the risk. Also use air conditioning where possible as that makes the mozzies quite dozy.

Otherwise, enjoy!

I was advised by my midwife to wait until baby is 6 weeks before you fly as their ears are still developing until then and it can cause them discomfort when you fly. Apaprt from that there is no reason you can't take a baby on a plane.