immunisations in early pregnancy

[LadyBee]

I've been asked to travel for work to India when I will be about 15 weeks - I'm about 8 weeks now.
The last time I went was 3 years ago and my Hep A and Typhoid immunisations have expired.
Does anyone know whether it would be recommended (or not) to have these immunisations in the first trimester? and if not, whether there's a minimum time before travel that you need to have them in order to get protection?

I'm a bit nervous about going anyway - it's going to be very very humid and could be very hot, outside of A/C places. And several colleagues who have gone recently have suffered badly from gastric upsets when they came back - although last time I went I was very careful and didn't suffer at all.

Anyway, any advice or experience about the above would be very much appreciated.

Bump for the morning

I wouldn't go myself - your work can't force you to do anything that might be harmful to you when you're pregnant.

I found this info. Hep A and Typhoid injections (but not tablets) are okay to take if you must travel to areas where you need them. It's up to you whether this is a must situation - for me it wouldn't be. NHS advice is: "Ideally, you should try to avoid visiting destinations which require vaccinations while you are pregnant"

Hi LadyBee (and it sounds like congratulations too!) Have your work carried out a pregnancy risk assessment for you? If you had second thoughts about going but needed to 'convince' your work IYSWIM (you don't sound sure about going from your post?) then a risk assessment will almost certainly highlight some of the areas you mention.

But if you do go then any travel clinic should be able to advise you well - and I say clinic rather than GP as in my experience they are not always very up to date on travel vaccinations (in terms of what is required/where at any given moment and contraindications for pregnancy etc.) whereas travel clinics are much more on the ball. My work has a clinic we always use and they have a phone helpline - might be worth checking out if yours does/has?

[On a completely unrelated note, we are choosing new books for Round Two of M&M book swap, if you are up for it again? We have a new thread.)

You should be seeing a doctor about vaccinations about 6 weeks prior to travelling because some of the vaccinations you'll need for India need boosters.

As you're only 8 weeks, I'm guessing you haven't told your work about your pregnancy yet? I would be telling your immediate boss and HR in confidence; I just wouldn't want to risk either vaccination or travel to somewhere that potentially has health risks regardless.

Congratulations on your pregnancy!!

My work recently asked if I wanted to go to Zambia - it was my choice. I looked into it and malaria tablets are not recommended when you're less than 16 weeks (which I am), so I didn't look at any other immunisations and decided not to go. That should be a consideration as well.
My advice would be to go to your doctor or a travel clinic and ask them what is safe.
Good luck and congratulations!

Work wanted to send me to India when we were TTC. They didn't tell me about the trip until it was just too late to stop trying that month and would have wanted me to travel when I'd have just found out. I really didn't want to have to explain the ins and outs of it (very male dominated company, most of them old enough to be my father) but also really didn't want to travel to an area where I'd need to take anti-malarial drugs when I was pregnant.

I talked to my GP, who said they'd write a note saying I couldn't travel at that time.

As it turned out the trip was canceled a few days later... Bizarrely, the travel clinic work used were completely unhelpful in this situation and said there was nothing they could do (although they were usually superb).

Congrats, and good luck getting it sorted

Don't want to mislead you and I've just found this on malaria.

Looks like you can take anti-malaria tablets if required but they don't recommend it.

If you HAVE to go and live there while pregnant - the risk of not having the jabs and then catching the diseases (and you may not catch them of course) would be far greater (these are nasty diseases) than the small potential risk of the jabs.

Also, if you have the jabs, and are staying out there for months, the baby would have some immunity while BF, until he/she is old enough to have vaccine.

However - maybe the safest thing to do is delay or cancel if you can?

If you had 2 Hep A jabs then you are protected for up to 20 years. Typhoid only lasts 3 years and is normally recommended for India. Depending where you go depends whether you need antimalarials.

You can have some vaccines when pregnant, but we only like to give them where travel is unavoidable and where the risks of the diseases outweighs the risks of the vaccine. Same for malarial chemoprophylaxis - we only prescribe if essential. IME most pregnant women avoid travelling to destinations requiring vaccination/antimalarials.

Travel vaccs should ideally be given about 3-4 weeks before travel. Antimalarials (depending which ones you need) should be started about a week before you travel and continued for up to a month on your return.

Hi thanks for all your advice - it wouldn't be to live there, just for a week or 10 day, and Delhi (where I'd be) has been downgraded as a malaria risk, so no antimalarials would be needed. BUT in my delhi-based team we've had one person come down with Dengue Fever and another with Typhoid - it's rainy season there now and these things do seem to be more prevalent at the moment.

Hmm, what a dilemna. I do want to go - it's seen as an honour in my company to be asked - and there's not much wiggle-room for delaying as one of the people I'm supposed to be visiting will be going on her maternity leave shortly!

I'll see if I can find a travel clinic to give me some advice and then I guess I'll talk to my line manager. Slightly adding to all the prevarication in my mind is the fact that I miscarried a pregnancy quite recently so am already overly anxious about this one. I just didn't really want to 'out' myself as pregnant so early, but as my manager was incredibly sensitive treating the previous MC I'm sure she'll be fine about this situation too.

arti - I've been such a terrible bookclubber but as I guess you can tell there's been quite a lot of stuff going on in the last 6 months that I've been rubbish at reading. I'll wander over and have a look and a think about whether it's fair for me to commit...

Sidge - bizarrely, I can't even remember having the jabs, but we have an occupational health nurse in the company and she was the one who told me my Hep A needed doing again, so perhaps she gave me it and it was only one?

It could be worth double checking, as if you have had both you will be covered to a significant degree. If you can ask the OH nurse what you had and when; she may not be fully au fait with travel health so you may be covered.

I have found the GP and nurses at my practice completely useless regarding this sort of information and knew far less than I did(I wanted to travel with my 10 month old dd to Gambia to visit my husband's family and was breastfeeding). The travel clinic near my work were excellent however and gave very detailed and specific advice, so I would definitely recommend them and not very expensive (£40 I think, and that included anti-malarials for me and my dd). Personally I would not travel to anywhere that had a realistic risk of malaria or any similar disease such as dengue fever when pregnant- I have a lot of experience of family members having complications with malaria in pregnancy and it is not worth the risk, but I would speak to a travel clinic and if you feel their advice is sound and they say you can travel it will be fine.