Flying at 19 weeks

I'm thinking about flying to Christchurch on Sunday, to drive home with my brother on Monday who's just come back from Antarctica..

I'll be flying AirNZ Dunedin-Christchurch, so only a short flight. But I can't seem to find ANYTHING on their site about if I'll need a medical certificate...

You can't actually tell I'm pregnant, I don't have a bump AT all.. Although give me a few days and I might pop

Texted my midwife but she wasn't sure, shes going to try to look into it aswell.... But I thought some wonderful amazing woman on here might already know! Or be able to find the info on AirNZ site?! Cos I sure as heck can't!!!

He's been there for just on 5months

He's driving down from Ohakea cos he's on a 19 day stand down, he's just up there at the moment getting his car warranted and insurance etc kicked back in before he hits the road.

So excited to see him, he missed our wedding cos of it (by TWO weeks as it turns out! he wasn't meant to come home till March!) but was such a amazing experience for him!!!

Will be good if I don't need a certificate! Don't really need to be thinking about that right now! Haha

I flew Christchurch to Kerikeri at around 33 weeks - You'll be fine, no medical certificate needed.

Aww HB how exciting! You'll be so pleased to see him

Hi there

Internationally you can fly up to 24 weeks without a medical cert. After that you need a med cert up until 36 weeks. After that it is the discretion of the airline. My friend flew 8 hours for a funeral at 38 weeks. Did the funeral flew back at 39 weeks and went into labour 3 days later. I think it was the stress of her father passing rather than the flight. I flew from saudi to hong kong at 22 weeks. I then flew from saudi to nz (20 odd hours with a overnight stopover) at 35 weeks 6 days. Went overdue with that baby and was looking at induction. lol. Get up and walk a lot and drink plenty of water. Your biggest worry is DVT's which when preggos you are in a slightly higher category for and dehydration. Being a domestic and relatively short flight you will be fine.   Hope this helps.

ETA I gave international flight restrictions as you pass for them and domestically it would be way less strict so you should be fine IYGWIM. Rambling now so will leave it at that. lol...

Edited by kiwi2

Hiya, i regularly fly down to chch, in fact did it last week. No problems - even sat in the emergency row :-) Only thing I did find, and it could be because I have terrible fluid retention, was that my legs got even more swollen than usual, so couldn't wait to get off! I will be flying back and forwards to chch until I get too fat for the seats! I think you aren't supposed to fly in the last 4 weeks, but if I have to, I'll probably just tell them I'm not as PG as I am ;-)

Ive flown to sydney, brisbane, auckland since 18 weeks and have been fine. The one thing that they wouldnt let me do was sit in the emergency row (as the door is quite heavy). I found that sitting in that awkward position for a few hours ended up making my bump hurt a little (kinda like stretching pains) which went away after moving gently about for 5 mins... (I always get stuck in the window seat and hate asking people to move so I can go to the bathroom, so I just suck it up) so maybe try to get an isle seat if you can.

How exciting! I hope you have a great time seeing your brother again