Newborn: ~1h car journey from Hospital

[autunno]

Hey everyone, long time lurker, finally having a reason to post about pregnancy related concerns!

I’m currently living outside of London, and we have decided to have our baby in a hospital within the city. The car journey should take around 1h, perhaps 1h10 at worst.

Having read car seat recommendations, I can see two lines of thought:

1. Break up any journey that is longer than 30 minutes with 15 minutes breaks.
2. Only break up 1h+ journey (NHS website is more extreme, indicating 2h!)

I will obviously get a proper recommendation from my hospital on how to best handle this, but I wanted to get the opinion of other parents who may have faced a similar situation.

We are ok with potentially breaking the journey in 2 or 3 chunks as needed, but I wonder if shooting for a non-stop journey is totally out of the books?

It’s recommended no more than 30 minutes in a car seat for newborn babies, with a decent break in between 30 minute sessions. Plan decent breaks where there’s somewhere to feed and change baby. You might need breaks for yourself too, I couldn’t have sat in a car for that long after birth.

The smaller the baby the greater the risk of prolonged time in the car seat so I would certainly plan for at least 1 stop in the journey home from the hospital

Thank you everyone! I may do 2 stops if the traffic is a bit slow on the day, and I may also drive slower than usual so that’s another factor for making 2 stops more adequate.

Should 15-20 minutes break suffice im each stop?

How do you know you will drive? You may be unable to? One stop would be fine. Or if someone else is driving sit beside baby to keep an eye on them?

What about a black cab then they can be in buggy bassinet.. is that allowed?

I'd guess it was the dad posting. I don't think any woman would plan to drive home from the hospital.

My first thought was, blimey I can see this baby being born in the car!
Id go for a nearer hospital.

When my first was born, we were an hour drive from nearest hospital (including motorway).

On the day... massive crash and we spent two hours stuck on said motorway, in labour. It was not comfortable! Coming home was the easy part (it was 2hrs in car seats back then)

Have a back up plan. My second was a planned homebirth... Good job due to the unseasonal snow!! (In March)

You can buy lie flat baby car seats which means they can have longer journeys. You'll probably get lots of use out it in the early months too!

Not sure which brands but a google search will tell you.

I would stop once and someone sit in the back seat with baby to keep an eye on them.

www.johnlewis.com/nuna-cari-next-carrycot-car-seat-caviar/p5952080

Here's an example but think you can get them cheaper.

Sit in the back of the car with baby to keep an eye. If traffic is heavy and you’re going to be a lot longer plan a break but otherwise I’d go straight home personally

We had a similar length car journey, I sat in the back with the baby to make sure they were ok (the danger is if they cannot hold their head up very well and they slump in the seat and block their airway). We didn't stop as just wanted to get home! The hospital will probably check your baby going into the car seat (if it's the type you can bring on to the ward) and after that it's up to you!

Personally I would not do a hospital 1hr away by choice. I had a 5 minute drive home after an EMCS and it was hell. Plenty of my friends had vaginal instrumental deliveries and found sitting in a car equally uncomfortable.

This.

We had a Maxi Cosi Jade lie flat car seat, it was great and took the stress out of longer car journeys. It goes across 2 seats in the back.

I live in an outer London borough and had 2 births at a central London hospital. 45mins - 1 hour in the car. We left at night when the traffic was lightest, but it was every single bump was painful for me. Sit in the back and plan a break if the journey is more than 45 mins.

I had really bad nausea after giving birth, no way could I have travelled for an hour without a stop

Me too. The risk is the baby being slumped and having their airway obstructed

Which car seat do you have? The 2 hour recommendation is a general recommendation for all babies in car seats and has no age limit. The 30 minute one is an updated, stricter recommendation for babies under 4 weeks old as it is known that they are more susceptible to positioning issues in car seats. Most car seats are not well designed for literal newborns, they fit better from around 4-6 weeks. If your baby is small at birth, this is even more likely to be an issue. If you have a more basic car seat, or one that is older/second hand, again it's more likely to be an issue.

If your baby is an average or higher weight at birth and you have a modern car seat with good inserts for newborns then the 30 minute recommendation is less likely to apply and I would be happy to stretch it, but I'd want to sit in the back and keep an eye on the baby, you can always stop if you feel worried.

But honestly we got delayed while bringing DS2 home - a man had a bad accident on his bike right in front of the car so we stopped and called an ambulance for him. I think DS2 must have been in that seat well over an hour, and I was really worried about him (DH left me with the man and went off to move the car so it wasn't blocking the road!) but of course he was fine.

The 1 hour seems to be a compromise one that originates from other countries - America/Canada/Australia - because they are more spread out so it's very common for people to live further from their hospital and be likely to have a 1h+ journey home. Places where the 30 min advice would be unrealistic. 30 min seems to be more used in Europe (especially UK) where many local car journeys will be max 30 mins anyway so easy to stick to the advice.

We recently drove our newborn 45min home from hospital. We then did the same journey 4 more times in 1.5 weeks. I sit in the back and give baby my finger to hold, occasionally tugging on it to check she's still gripping and OK. All fine. Do what makes you comfortable. Why not plan stops that you can take if you need to, but don't need to stop if you think it's fine at the time. We've only had to stop once because baby needed feeding and changing and wouldn't stop crying, but generally baby sleeps. All the best for an easy labour and drive home!

I agree with @Hufflepods . If the mother has a C section (and maybe tears, but I have no experience of them), she'll find a long drive very uncomfortable. Don't forget, she'll be bleeding and exhausted too, regardless of how the baby is delivered.

And bear in mind you're meant to register a birth in the borough the baby is born, so you'll need to make an appointment do it and trek back in to London with it before the baby is 6 weeks old. (I think you can register an out-of-borough birth locally, but it's not straightforward, with more layers of admin. It was certainly not practical when we had an out-of-borough baby).

I'd be worried about being so far from the hospital too, my labours were really quick! I think the second one was only about an hour and fifteen minutes!

Erm 4 kids never once broke a car journey lol