3 Tips For Traveling While Pregnant

While being pregnant isn’t always a walk in the park for women, what can often make pregnancy symptoms worse is the physical and mental stress that comes along with traveling. But when you have an important trip planned or something comes up that you have to travel for, you shouldn’t let your pregnancy or your pregnancy symptoms stand in the way of you being able to do what you need to do. So to help you make the best of this situation and find comfortability wherever you can, here are three tips for traveling while pregnant.

Be Careful With Your Timing

Even if you’ve been pregnant before, there’s really no telling how your pregnancy is going to affect your body and how you’ll be feeling at any given point along the way. However, there are a few times where it’s more likely that you’ll be feeling up to traveling and times where traveling will be the last thing you want to do. According to Allison Goldstein, a contributor to the Huffington Post, the best times to travel as a pregnant woman are between 20 and 30 weeks along. Before this time, you’re much more likely to be feeling sick or nauseous. After 30 weeks, traveling can get harder and more complicated since you’re getting closer to your due date and your body is being pushed to the max.

Prepare Yourself For Bathroom Breaks

Regardless of what point in your pregnancy you’re traveling at, you’re likely going to need to be making more bathroom breaks that you otherwise would if you weren’t pregnant. And while you might feel tempted to try to hold out for as long as you can to either avoid being an inconvenience to those you’re traveling with or to just get a couple more miles behind you before you have to stop again, What To Expect, warns against doing this. If you don’t go to the restroom when your body needs to, you could quickly develop a UTI or get constipated, both things that could severely ruin your travel plans.

Don’t Sit Still For Too Long

In addition to going to the bathroom frequently, Emily Brennan, a contributor to The New York Times, shares that you’re also not going to want to sit still for too long when you’re pregnant and traveling. The pregnancy hormones in your body make your blood more viscous, which means you can develop blood clots easier. So to ensure that your blood keeps circulating as it should, it’s important that you get up to stretch or walk at regular intervals even when you’re traveling.

If you have travel plans that will take place during a pregnancy, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you get through this trip without becoming any worse for the wear.