Babymoon vacations offer expectant parents one last hurrah

Annie Pfeifer was two months’ pregnant when she asked her husband where they should go for their babymoon.

“What is that?” he asked.

“I was like, you know, it’s just like a honeymoon before your baby comes,” she said.

It’s a growing trend for some couples to take a vacation before baby arrives. While traveling pregnant may not seem like fun to some, many couples seek one last hurrah before sleepless nights caring for a baby.

A 2013 American Express survey found that 37 percent of people with children 12 or younger are considering or have taken a babymoon.

The Pfeifers settled on a Bahamas cruise in July when Annie was 19 weeks along, getting a last-minute deal online and using credit card rewards to pay for most of the trip.

“It’s the last time you can take a vacation that still has a little spontaneity involved and you can do activities that aren’t catered toward kids,” Pfeifer said.

The Pfeifers, who got scuba certified on their honeymoon to Costa Rica, didn’t do water sports for their babymoon.

Instead, they rented a cabana on the beach. Pfeifer got a doctor’s note because some cruise lines won’t accept passengers after a certain point in pregnancy.

“My advice would be to go into it with the intention of having a relaxing vacation, because you’re just probably not going to normally be able to do a high-energy vacation,” Pfeifer said.

The Pfeifers used photos from their cruise to announce their new arrival on Facebook.

Baby Pfeifer is due in December.

“Hopefully before Christmas,” Pfeifer said with a smile.

International travel

Other couples take a more adventurous route.

Shiloh and Levi Ewing took a 10-day babymoon to Japan in February. Shiloh Ewing was about five months’ pregnant.

“You lose a day going there,” she said. “It’s like a day that you never lived. ... We like traveling, and we knew that things would change once we had a baby.”

Their daughter, Vivienne, was born three weeks early in May.

“We’d wanted to go there for awhile, and one morning I woke up and was like ‘I wonder how much plane tickets actually cost right now,’ because normally it’s more than I would like to spend on tickets,” Levi Ewing said. “I saw them and thought ‘Wow, that’s actually a reasonable price range,’ and it kind of grew from there.”

The couple, who traveled with Shiloh’s parents, explored a cherry blossom festival and walked through a bamboo forest.

One priority: Japanese food, including sushi.

“(For Americans), there are a lot of dos and don’ts when you’re pregnant, but Japanese women don’t have most of those regulations. … They eat raw fish all the time, and it’s not a concern for them at all,” Shiloh said.

The Ewings have traveled to foreign countries and many states. They still hope to travel with Vivienne, although it may be closer to home for now.

“We’ll see how it goes when she gets older,” Shiloh said. “But I feel like we’re going to try to stay mobile and flexible even with kids.”

If you go

For most pregnant women, it’s safe to travel, said Jackson Sobbing, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Associates in Women’s Health.

His safety tips: Women in the first trimester can typically do what they normally would do. Later on, they may want to avoid things like water skiing or scuba diving, Sobbing said. It’s also a good idea to get a doctor’s note before traveling or getting a massage.

Many cruises and airlines have restrictions on allowing pregnant passengers once they hit a certain point.

Sobbing urges women who are pregnant and traveling by car or by plane to get up and stretch their legs every hour or two to help prevent the risk of blood clots.

“Air travel is definitely safe during pregnancy,” Sobbing said. “There are misconceptions about cabin pressure and radiation in the atmosphere. ... For a pregnant woman, the biggest risk is turbulence if they’re further along since they can fall and hit their abdomen. If there’s turbulence, stay in your seat.”

When traveling by car, women should wear seat belt as they normally would and not turn off airbags, he said.

The biggest risk for food-borne illness is listeriosis – mainly from unprocessed milk, cheese and deli meats, or the occasional tainted cantaloupe or ice cream, Sobbing said.

After 24 weeks, the fetus is viable in the U.S. and most First World countries, Sobbing said. If traveling internationally, he urges women to travel only to places that could give the same level of care as they get in the U.S.

This story was originally published September 6, 2015 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Babymoon vacations offer expectant parents one last hurrah."