Travel and Breastfeeding Are Intimately Compatible

   A website on breastfeeding says, “I carry a lightweight blanket when I travel with my breastfed infant. If someone seems to be bothered by my nursing – even though I do it discreetly – I offer them the blanket so that they can cover their eyes.”

No reason to stay home because you’re breastfeeding. In fact, when traveling, the alternative, bottle-feeding, tends to be more of a hassle because you have to carry bulky supplies and worry about sterilization, among other things.

If you’re planning a trip with your little one, consider these 10 tips to help you out:

1. Travel-related stresses and altered sleeping and eating patterns do not significantly (if at all) interfere with the flow of breast milk. Try to stay relaxed and rested, and follow your home routine as closely as possible.

2. Forty states in the U.S. have laws allowing women to breastfeed in any public or private location. Twenty-five states exempt breastfeeding from public indecency laws.Virginia allows women to breastfeed on any land or property owned by the state. Puerto Rico requires airports, shopping malls, and specific other locations to have areas that are not bathrooms designated for breastfeeding and diaper changing. For the laws of each state, see: www.ncsl.org/programs/health/breast50.htm. Outside the U.S., attitudes toward breastfeeding in public tend to be more relaxed, with few, if any, restrictions.

3. You may carry bottled breast milk through airport security. Such milk is exempt from rules that limit carry-on liquids to three ounces or less. Breast milk is also exempt from the rule that liquids (and baby food) must be carried in zip-lock plastic bags. However, the milk must be screened by the X-ray machines, a procedure that has no known adverse effect on the milk.

4. Travel-related (and other) vaccines are safe for you and your infant. The only possible exception is the yellow fever vaccine, necessary only for travel to well-defined areas in sub-Saharan Africa and tropical rainforests in South America. There is a theoretical risk of transmitting the vaccine virus via breast milk to the infant and harming the infant. However, as far as is known, this has never occurred.

5. Vaccines you receive do not protect your infant. Infants need to be protected with their own age-specific vaccines.