TRAVELLING WHILE PREGNANT

I've been lucky enough to be away for work in both India and Italy since finding out I was expecting. It's obviously only early days but I thought I'd share what I found helped me when travelling pregnant so far.

Fortunately I'm not at the stage where I'm uncomfortable because of my size yet.. but on the other hand I've been travelling while a lot of tiredness and nausea has kicked in. As I mentioned in a previous post, I popped in to chat to my GP before going to India to ask for some advice. The main change I had to make was not to take any antihistamines at all - I was, however, allowed to take the creams for stings and things and nasal spray for hayfever. I took probiotics as well as rehydration sachets and various other permitted first aid medicines.

In Italy I didn't stop sneezing and felt quite bunged up, so carried packs of tissues everywhere. I also found carrying cereal and pressed fruit bars everywhere really helped to combat tiredness and kept me going. I ate them quickly throughout my working days (I would usually feel fine lasting until meal times) and having a little food and sugar helped me from feeling dizzy too. As I'm avoiding having more than 200mg caffeine a day, as recommended (an average cup of coffee has 80 mg), I carried some Skittles and a few little chocolates to give me a boost when I needed it in lieu of my normal pick-me-up.

I made sure I carried water constantly in India in particular, I've felt much more dehydrated these past few weeks, and often wake up with a really dry mouth. I'm easily drinking more than my 2 litres a day at the moment. My friend also had some rehydration sachets with minerals, sugars and salts to replenish that feeling of being worn down, and they really helped me feel a little more normal when I was feeling physically 'done' after a few days of work and extensive walking. These are completely safe when pregnant and I have a feeling I'll be relying on them this wedding season too.

I've found the heat has affected me much more than it usually would, and making me feel quite woozy and dizzy along the way. There wasn't a lot I could do but it definitely made me feel more conscious of how my body was feeling, and I tried to make time to sit and give myself breaks so I didn't feel worse along the way too.

I also usually pop ibuprofen semi-regularly for my back (occupational hazard - from carting so much camera gear around) which I now can't do. I don't remember not being allowed ibu last time I was pregnant but after advice and a NHS site google it really seems I can't. So paracetamol and no ibu-gel for me for the rest of the year.

In August I'm travelling to France for work at 15 weeks, we are hoping to have a family holiday in the Canary Islands in October, 27 weeks, and we have flights booked to Copenhagen in November when I'll be 31 weeks. My GP has told me not to get my hopes up for that trip in case I'm having twins.. which is a mildly terrifying prospect. I'll revisit this topic when I'm travelling 'bigger' and have all new issues to deal with along the way. I'm very much imagining it'll be a very attractive combination of feeling huge, overheating, being grumpy and squeezing huge cankles and swollen feet into flip flops..