Tips to help protect your baby from flu during travel

April 28, 10:56 AMTravels with Baby ExaminerShelly Rivoli

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Clip a lightweight receiving blanket to your car seat or stroller canopy to help shield against coughs and sneezes in crowds.

1. Instead of regular baby wipes, which do not contain alcohol, use antibacterial hand wipes or alcohol-containing hand sanitizer to keep hands clean on the go. This is especially important after passing through airports and stations where escalator handrails, elevator buttons, and door handles are constantly touched by the same hands that have covered sneezes and coughs.
2. When entering crowded public places with your baby, such as airports, train stations, markets, or busy elevators, attach a lightweight receiving blanket to the edge of your infant car seat or stroller sun shade to drop down as an extra shield against coughs and sneezes that transmit virus on droplets through the air to land on lower surfaces (including your child in her stroller).
3. Continue breastfeeding through upcoming travel to give your baby added protection against illness through the antibodies mom’s body makes and delivers through breast milk in response to the germs she encounters.
4. Consider driving rather than flying or traveling by train to limit all family members’ exposure to flu virus.
5. Avoid unnecessary travel with infants during flu season and outbreaks such as the current outbreak of swine flu, particularly to affected regions like Mexico. Remember that flu season is the opposite in the southern hemisphere, and can last year-round in the tropics.
6. Discuss flu vaccine with your child’s pediatrician. Although a current flu shot doesn’t protect against swine flu, flu vaccine can help protect babies 6 months and older against seasonal flu.
7. Pregnant mothers may also consider receiving a flu shot not only to protect them against seasonal flu during and after pregnancy, but possibly to help protect their infant from flu during the first 6 months—not a bad idea if you plan to travel with your infant. Click here for more about the New England Journal of Medicine study that shows a link between maternal flu vaccine and protection of infants.
8. Lay down the law about limiting contact with anyone showing possible symptoms of flu (cough, runny nose, muscle aches, diarrhea or vomiting, and certainly fever) when visiting friends and relatives, regardless of how much they want to hold or kiss the baby during your stay. 
9. Choose window seats on airplanes that will allow you to position yourself between your baby and fellow passengers, and reconsider seats at the bulkhead row where additional passengers may linger awaiting the lavatory or can more easily stop to dote over your baby.
10. Discuss your upcoming travel plans with your baby’s doctor, and how to recognize flu symptoms in your baby (it can be a bit tougher to identify early flu symptoms in babies who regularly spit up and have smooshy stools than with older children who can also tell you how they feel). Be sure to take along any phone numbers or email addresses for your pediatrician’s office and/or other advice nurse contacts to use in case of illness as you travel.

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