Would you travel with 6 month old baby to Africa?

[aqua-anya]

Hi there,

In need of some advice and/or opinions on travelling to West Africa with 6 month old babies!

In a tricky situation. My partner's family live in Benin, West Africa, and everyone wants to meet the new arrivals. Our twins are now 2 months old, and we're thinking of travelling over the Christmas period. If we don't go then, we probably won't have an opportunity for another 2 years. It will be hot and humid (but not raining season), we'll definitely have contact with the local population, and there's always the risk of malaria, hepatitis, yellow fever etc that can't be vaccinated against.

I guess the main risk is malaria. We've checked the rates and it's not too bad if managed, i.e. stay in the city only, in a hotel by the sea, sleep with bednets, have A/C room and car, avoid spending a lot of time outdoors in evenings, wear long sleeve light clothing etc. In the city, the rate of malaria is 5 infectious bites per person per year; so for a 1 week stay, the risk is less than 1%. Then again, it only takes one bite. The babies could potentially take preventative medicine, and we could use repellant, but I'd really rather not. Medical facilities are easily accessible should anything happen.

When we travelled there last year, I caught a tummy bug and spent 3 nights in a clinic. I'm Aussie so my immunity to the local environment was poor, but now I'm obviously biased as to how 'safe' it is there.

What are your thoughts please? Would you go? Safe to travel with all precautions, or better not to?

And, if you have travelled with a baby to Africa or another part of the world with similar risks, please spare a moment to share your views!

[Fuschia]

Advice could be obtained from here

http://www.thehtd.org/Travelclinic.aspx

I guess the approach is to do a risk assessment and work through what steps you can take to reduce the risks then to decide if you are happy with the level of residual risk that remains

[Saffron]

DH has previously lived and worked in east Africa, mainly Tanzania. On his last journey there, he ran out of malaria tablets a few days before returning home to London. He didn't like taking the tablets and thought a few days probably wouldn't make a difference.

Shortly after returning to London he developed flu-like symptoms, which NHS physicians unbelievably failed to diagnose as malaria, despite the fact that he told them he had been in sub-Saharan Africa.* He was sent home. Not long after this, he recounts that he awoke with a terrible feeling of foreboding that his mortal days were numbered. So he again sought medical treatment. The nurse asked him for a urine sample, which was black due to rampant malaria infection causing haemolysed blood cells to enter the urine. That was the last thing he said he can remember because he passed out in the nurse's office with cerebral malaria. The next thing he knew, he was waking up from a coma in a hospital bed.

He is incredibly lucky to be alive and not to have suffered any long term disability.

He was considering returning to Tanzania a few years ago b/c he so much enjoyed his work there with the Buigiri school for the blind. And I was really looking forward to going with him b/c I've never been to Africa. However, we then fell pregnant with Little Saff, and we decided to delay our plans until she is older, so that she could be fully vaccinated.

So, no, I wouldn't take an infant anywhere that malaria is endemic. But that's just me. As Fuschia writes, you have to weigh up the risks/benefits and decide for yourself.

Find more information here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2621/

http://www.atsu.edu/faculty/chamberlain/Website/lectures/lecture/malaria.htm

Another thing to consider would be who could look after your children if both you and your partner had the misfortune to be ill at the same time. Eg, are the relatives elderly, work, have other children to look after etc?

A compromise might be if you spent the money you'd have used for your trip to Benin, instead to buy plane tickets for some of your relatives to fly to London?

Good luck with whatever decision you make, and I hope you and your partner are able to see his relatives soon. xx

*This is before we met. If I had been there, I would obviously have been shouting the A&E down for a malaria test immediately!

[pommie]

we are off to south Africa in a few weeks time with a 5 year old and 18 month old. The nurse at our doctors told us to look up the website fit4travel which will give you information on what jabs you need to have. We have just had to have our Hep A injections and she recommended we have the Hep B ones too

[keane]

I think I would be worried about the risk with 6 month old babies as they are still so tiny & have immature immune systems. I think I would see if any of the relatives could come here as I think I would be stressing & also they can't tell us how they feel. Good luck with whatever u decide! K

[ClareC]

I wouldn't risk it.