UK to Australia @ 7.5 months pregnant?

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Considering moving back to Australia in January - when I'll be 7.5 months pregnant.

I am very used to travel and have done this particular long-haul more than a dozen times.

Is it risky if my pregnancy progresses normally up till then?

Do check with your doc. You may need to have heparin injections to fly that far (as the risk of DVT when pregnant and not flying is way higher than when flying long-haul not pregnant). I wouldn't do that for work/business, but maybe if you're set on going home it'd be worth it.

I'd also say that IMO flying club would be essential. I'm flying to France at 26 weeks pregnant and no I couldn't go in economy, let alone all the way to Oz (have done that trip twice). Even aside from the bump and possible SPD, etc, you have to have room to be able to do plenty of exercises because of the DVT risk. I know I fly to the US ecomnomy before getting pg and had no room to move at all.

I went on holiday at 30 weeks just to Crete so about a 4 hour flight and it was hellish. Admittedly, I was having particularly bad back pain for a few weeks, much more so than now (38 weeks). I would NEVER do it again. If you can go earlier then do it!

I flew on a 5 and a half hour flight when I was 33 weeks, flew one way coming back to the UK. Before I flew I checked the airlines regulations on flying when pregnant, they told me that I could fly up to 36 weeks, still saw a doctor the night before the trip and got a note to say that I was fit to fly. Got to the airport and almost missed my plane! They insisted that I saw a doctor at the airport, had blood pressure tested ( which was sky high at this point!), I had to fill in a great deal of paper work which then had to be stamped and signed by the doctor ... had exactly the same problem then with my connecting flight and had to go through all of the test again. They also insisted on typing on my ticket that i was pregnant but they put pregnant instead of my surname - that caused problems with connecting flight as they wanted to know why my surname wasn't 'pregnant' on my passport. Plane wasn't too bad, chairs were very big with plenty of leg room but towards the end I was very uncomfortable with back ache. Also was a problem constantly needing the toilet and the space when you stand up to get out of the chair isn't big and you have to squeeze your bump through it! If I could see my time over again then I wouldn't have flown as it really was a lot of hassle. I only flew because I thought that I had a low risk pregnancy - got back to the UK and found out otherwise so never should have flown anyway!

Hey headinghome, I flew home from NZ at 35 weeks....it wasn't so bad. I wouldn't have chose to but it really was ok, so much that I even squeezed 3 days in Singapore too. The majority of travel insurance will only cover you til 28-32 wks, as others have said. As long as you are fit and well in pregnancy, deffo get some flight socks as you are high risk of DVTs when pregnant and adhere to the inflight advice of drinking plenty of water and regularly moving (to the toilet and back of course!). It was your national airline Qantas who accepted me, they were more than happy to fly me. Good luck!

Without saying you 'should' do this, a friend did a similar one-way long-haul at about the same stage (with dr cert and flight socks and whatever else was needed). For practical reasons, she needed to move back Down Under and couldn't do so sooner, hence flying at 7-months-odd.

I said 'wouldn't it be better to wait till after you've had the baby?' (Bear in mind that this was before my own colicky and won't stop feeding and won't sleep DC1 had been born, so I was a tad naive :o) She pointed out that flying alone with a baby would be far worse than at 7 months pregnant... :o

Good luck if you do it, and congrats!