Holiday in Thailand whilst pregnant (advice needed please)

[Tessiebear]

My younger sister has been married a year and is Desperate to start TTC. They decided to throw away her pills this month. Their best friends have now announced they are getting married in Thailand in April. My sister has researched the location on the internet and she apparently wouldnt need malaria tablets (Phuckett?!?) She has decided to wait until October to try and conceive so that if she fell pregnant straight away she would not be heavily pregnant whilst on holiday. Is she being stupid getting pg before the holiday, or should she be safe whilst abroad??

As long as she takes the usual precautions (drink bottled water, avoid ice in drinks etc) that all tourists are advised to follow when visiting Thailand she'll be fine. Phuket isn't a malarial region.

I went when I was around 10 weeks pregnant, we'd booked before we knew and apart from morning sickness which kicked in at 4 in the afternoon, I had no problems at all.

We went to India (goa) when I was 18 weeks pregnant - great holiday and no sickness at all.

My only reservation about Thailand in April would be the heat - we went at this time of year and it averaged 43deg centigrade for the month, combined with the humidity it was murder.

Just a thought...

I don't think she need to be worried about being heavily pregnant in Phucket but about being heavily pregnant in the flight to and back, but as long as she takes the recommend precautions she will be fine.

I went to The Red Sea, Egypt, 3 weeks ago (for honeymoon) and I was worried, but knew where we were going was safe, just did the obvious with water etc. But even had runny eggs, and prawns!

When I asked registrar if I would be ok at 16 weeks, they were more worried about the flight being long haul, (5 hours), as I was high risk as I'm carrying twins. So I had to take low dose aspirin, where those sexy flight socks, and drink loads of water. Also spent as much time as possible standing up. We were lucky, that there was 1 spare seat on the plane, both ways and they gave us that between us, so I could put my legs up.

Really glad I went now, as we did actually cancel, and only booked 1 week before. I was up to date with all my vaccinations though as we went last year. Better to check things like tetanus etc before she conceives.

'wear' the flight socks, sorry.

I went to Malaysia & NZ when I was 20 weeks. Again it was the flight that was my GPs concern - but she basically said just to follow the exercises that they give in the inflight magazines, walk around a lot and drink loads.

GP told me not to take malaria tablets but to make sure that I covered my skin at all times (I didn't need telling twice, it was August and fiercely hot, so I felt much cooler in light linen shirts and trousers and staying in the shade/indoors). She advised me that if I ever did find myself in a position where there might be mosquitos about to use a safe insecticide too - as well as covering up. Ask at a pharmacy, as most aren't safe during pg.

I am soooooo grateful we went. We had to go at that time (my brother was only living there for one year) and we wondered a bit about whether to put off getting pg until after we'd been. In the end we decided that we had no idea how long it would take us to get pg, and that there would always be some reason or other why this wasn't the best time. And I have to say I am sure we made the right decision - as it is we only took 3 months to get pg so I was about as pg as I could have been, and the holiday was still amazing.

went to Philippines at about 10 weeks, various places in Europe and Australia at 5 months. Never had any problems - even flying to Oz with a bump and a toddler on my lap. Personally, I don't think you can plan babies to that extent - they're not usually that co-operative! Everyone's different but I wouldn't delay throwing away the pills for this.

Travelled to Aus via Singapore ( had holiday in SIngapore) at 17/18 weeks pregnant - just followed the usual precautions for all tourists and made sure I had lots of fluids and had a bulkhead seat where I had lots of legroom etc ( we did have dd in a skycot which helped) but she could tell them she is pregnant (if heavily) and request a bulkhead seat...

As long as she covers up and uses a pregnancy friendly insect repellant - no reason why not...

Thanks all for your good advice (any more greatly appreciated) My sister has decided that they WILL go and she is going to ditch the pills at beginning of November so even if she does fall straight away she would not be heavily preggers. I will get her logged on to the TTC thread in a few months!