Knocked up abroad: international travel with a baby

This is the third in Knocked Up Abroad‘s guide to traveling with a baby. Before you go, see tips on planning travel and flying with a baby.

So you’ve decided to travel abroad with your new family addition, well done! You’ve chosen the best baby-friendly destination, packed light, and even survived the long flight. Now that you’re on the ground, possibly recovering from jet lag and hopefully learning new foreign phrases for “what a cute baby!,” how can you ensure you and your baby have a fun and relaxing vacation? After five countries in under four months (several of them without other adults), I can say it mostly comes down to attitude and planning. Here are my tips for international travel with a baby:

-Don’t expect the world to cater to you. The most important thing to bring on a trip with a baby is the right attitude. If you travel expecting every restaurant to have a baby-changing table in the bathroom (which they probably won’t, especially in Europe) or that public transportation should be stroller-accessible, you can be sorely disappointed. Keep your expectations low and get creative. I’ve changed my baby on many toilet seat lids, on top of and even in sinks (stuff your diaper bag in to make a flat base), and occasionally in her stroller. Allow yourself to be surprised by people, too. In New York, I was prepared to carry my stroller up and down stairs at some subway stops by myself, yet I was helped by strangers every time. A restaurant owner in Italy set up a makeshift table on top of their deep freezer when she saw me struggling to change the baby on a sink top. Look at inconveniences as part of the adventure rather than a sign you should have stayed home.-Plan your logistics carefully, and then let the rest of your plans go. As noted previously, it pays to do your research before departing. Each day of your trip, plan out where you want to go, how to get there, and what you might need but realize that you might not do any of it. In Malta, there was a wine festival in the next town with cheap tastings and free food, but a cranky baby meant we stayed within walking distance of our apartment (good thing too, or we could have missed a great parade). In Slovenia, we had to make a detour back to our hotel after a diaper incident meant I had to strip my baby down to just her winter coat and diaper. Babies can be unpredictable, so you may need stop at a cafe to feed a baby, take an extra walk around the block before bed to soothe crying, or go back to your room early when the weather turns bad. While combination transit or tourist passes might be a good value, they won’t be if your baby won’t go in a museum without screaming or prefers an open-air stroll to a bus ride.

-Find favorite rest stops. When you need to take a time out from exploring to feed or change your baby, there can be some comfortable places to stop that exist in nearly every destination. Museums and large hotels tend to have nice bathrooms, sometimes with changing facilities. Large baby stores may have a private nursing room or a place to change the baby, plus plenty of gear and gadgets if you need them. Pharmacists generally speak English and carry nearly all of the necessities. At night, however, you may have to be creative again. I tend to visit the same cafes in Istanbul again and again not just for the food but for the bathrooms, the waiters who rush to coddle and play with the baby, and comfy seating while I feed her.

-Breast is best when traveling. While it’s a personal choice how you feed your baby, if you can and want to breastfeed, there is evidence both anecdotal and scientific to support that breastfeeding is preferred while traveling. According to the CDC, it provides needed immunities, nutrition, and hydration for the baby. Even if the mother gets traveler diarrhea, breastfeeding can help to protect from contaminants and rehydrate the baby. It’s also convenient: perfectly packaged, the right temperature, and nothing goes to waste! Nursing mothers may still want to carry a manual pump and store a spare bottle or two. So far, I’ve found every country to be friendly to breastfeeding mothers, though I carry and use a scarf for modesty and spit-up. La Leche League has resources in many countries if you need help, check their map for local groups.

-Document your baby’s trip. It goes without saying that you’ll take plenty of photos and perhaps journal, blog, or tweet your trip, but it helps to document the more mundane activities too. When my baby was born, I got a set of cute notebooks to help me keep track of her feeding and sleeping schedule and diaper changes. I maintained it faithfully only for the first month or two, but now try to revive the records when I travel. Especially if you’re dealing with a big time change, it can help you to figure out how the baby is adjusting by keeping track of how often they eat and how long they sleep at a stretch. It’s also useful when deciding how many diapers to buy so you don’t get caught short or hauling around a mega pack. In the event that your baby gets sick (fingers crossed that they don’t!) during or after your trip, you can tell the doctor if anything is out of the ordinary and help pinpoint causes. You don’t need a fancy notebook either, you can jot down notes on the back of a museum ticket or restaurant receipt while you’re making a pit stop.

-Pack “in between” clothes. If your baby has clothes that he is about to grow out of, bring them along on your travels. If they have only one or two more wears left in them, you won’t mind if they get left behind in a hotel room, will have less to launder or carry, and you’ll probably take many photos of your baby so you can remember a favorite outfit before it gets too small. Keep a spare in your diaper or day bag in case of a changing emergency.

-Know your conversions. Do you know your baby’s weight in kilograms? Does 39 degrees sound hot or cold to you? If you’re American, you probably suffer from the disadvantage of not knowing the metric system used by the rest of the world. You’ll need to know measurements when buying diapers as size numbers might change between countries. My baby was born weighing 3.4 kilos (about 7.5 pounds) and wears a size 2 Pampers in every European country, but wore a size 1 in the same brand of American diapers. In case of a fever while traveling, you should know what temperatures require a visit to a local doctor or just a dose of Children’s Tylenol (which is called Calpol in many other countries, by the way). This info is all online, of course, but it can’t hurt to jot it down in your wallet just in case.

-Carry lots of bags. One of the more useful items to pack and/or collect on your trip is bags disposable, resealable, and reuseable. Bottles can be kept clean and stained clothing can be kept separate from the rest of your stuff in a Ziploc bag (bring a stash from home, they are harder to find in some countries). Supermarket store plastic bags are useful for laundry and diapers until you can deal with them properly. You’ll be going to the store more than usual for baby supplies, and many countries don’t supply bags for free, so bring your own reuseable tote for groceries, carrying gear from your luggage on an outing, or bringing souvenirs home. Bags are useful even without a baby but can also make a huge difference if you have a wet baby miles from your hotel.

What are your secret weapons for traveling with a baby? Leave us your success stories (and mistakes) in the comments.

Plane Answers: Can passengers survive an explosive depressurization?

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Josh asks:

We’ve all heard the standard spiel about oxygen masks and flotation devices. Likewise, we’ve all seen the cartoonish drawings of proper positioning of one’s body in the event of an emergency (the “brace for impact” pose), etc… Two things I’ve heard people say are that:

a) the air temperature outside the cabin at most cruising altitudes on jet engine planes is sufficient to instantly freeze all bodies on board solid within literally seconds;

b) the change in air pressure is likely to be so disruptive to one’s ear drum, putting on oxygen masks and taking the fetal position is difficult to impossible due to disorientation.
As to the first one, I’ve flown many a Delta flight where on screen displays indicate the temperature outside the cabin to be extremely low (far far below zero). Likewise, I recall reading an article about a jet crash in Greece (I think) where the plane was supposedly depressurized in flight and crashed into a mountain. The report indicated that rescue workers arrived in a relatively short time, but everybody on board was in fact frozen solid. The report indicated this happened in the air, and w/in seconds of depressurization, not on the ground. So there seems to be some credence to this one.

As for the second one, about air pressure and disorientation, I’m of the understanding that though the need arises very rarely, passengers have been able to take action to put on oxygen masks when necessary. Of course, I don’t know how many times (if ever) that need has arisen when at any significant altitude.

So are these frequent flyer myths, exaggerations, based in some fact or accurate descriptions of the reality of jet travel?

The most common cause of depressurization on an airplane is from the loss of both of the air conditioning and pressurization “packs.” There are two of these units that pressurize the cabin on all airliners and one of them is allowed to be inoperative, although it’s not a common occurrence. Should the airplane lose the remaining pack, the cabin altitude, which normally allows for a comfortable 6,000 feet when the airplane is flying above FL 300 (30,000 feet), will slowly climb to the same altitude the airplane is flying.

So it’s imperative that the pilots descend below 14,000 feet, the altitude that the masks will deploy, as soon as possible and to level off at 10,000 feet or lower.

This situation recently happened to my brother. He was able to descend to a lower altitude and the cabin altitude never exceeded 10,000 feet, so no passenger masks dropped from the ceiling.

In the case of an explosive depressurization, like that of Aloha flight 243, these masks will be extremely important. Those passengers as well as the people aboard a United 747 that lost a cargo door, were able to don the masks and remain warm enough to survive until the airplane reached a lower altitude. Both those cases were near Hawaii, however. So it could be a rather cold descent anywhere else. But the initial explosive depressurization didn’t result in so much disorientation that they couldn’t put their masks on.

And you’re right, it’s common to see minus 40 to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit (-40 to -50 Celsius) when at altitude. At temperatures of minus 40 (C or F), skin freezes almost instantly, although the temperature warms quickly as you descend.

Finally, the Greek Helios 737 flight that you mention was never pressurized after takeoff, because of a mistake that was especially tragic. The pilots inadvertently departed without noticing the pressurization controller was in the manual position. They missed the ear-popping cues, the temperature cues, the warning lights on the overhead, and they misdiagnosed a cabin altitude warning horn for the horn that notifies pilots that the airplane is unsafe for takeoff because of incorrectly configured flaps, trim or speedbrakes. Interestingly, the sound of the horn is identical in both situations.

On a side-note, I’ve talked to the Boeing engineers who worked on an early version of a ‘text message’ system called CPDLC that air traffic controllers can use to provide instructions to pilots. I asked these engineers what sound they would be choosing to alert the pilots of an incoming message.

As I suspected, they explained that they would be using the same sound that flight attendants use to call the pilots. And that chime is used for FMC wind and route uplink notifications among other things. They claimed that studies have shown that people have difficulty differentiating between more than five types of sounds.

The Helios pilots failed to understand this warning horn and subsequently failed to don their masks, resulting in the masks dropping in the back of the airplane while the pilots were trying to simply silence the warning horn.

Oxygen is vital for a pilot to be able to troubleshoot an abnormal situation as this amazing recording between a cargo flight that lost pressurization and air traffic control demonstrates. Note the altitude warning horn in the background of this ATC tape with the flight:

On a similar, but far less morbid topic, Steve asks:

What is the average temperature inside commercial airliners? I was told 82 degrees F by a pilot who was seated next to me in first class. This is to put everyone to sleep. At 35,000 ft. the temperature outside is -60 F, correct?

Yes, it’s often nearly that cold, as I mentioned above. According to our indications on the Boeing, we shoot for around 70 to 72 degrees. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult for that indicator to be perfectly calibrated. And when the flight is nearly full, pumping 70 degree air into the cabin can be too warm. Fewer passengers on board means we need to increase the selected temperature.

But by far the biggest driver of the temperature is the flight attendant. Typically they like it a bit cooler while they’re working hard to get a meal service accomplished, and afterwards, when they’re not as active, they’ll need it to be warmer.

So on your next flight, see if the first part of the flight, during the meal service, is cooler than the latter part.

If it were up to the pilots, the controls for the cabin temperature would be in the back, with the flight attendants. The 777 has some control over the temperature provided to the flight attendants, resulting in far fewer calls to the pilots asking for warmer or cooler temperatures.

And contrary to the belief by some cynics out there, we’re definitely NOT keeping the cabin cooler to sell more blankets.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for the next Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work. Twitter @veryjr

Passenger uses SkyMall to block air vent

Airplanes are notoriously cold. That’s why everyone is eager to find the blankets and airlines are looking to make money off of them. But what do you do when the temperature in the plane is so low that you can’t possibly relax? If you’re on a plane that doesn’t allow you to close your the air vent above you, you’re typically out of luck. Recently, however, one passenger used some ingenuity, chutzpah and an airplane staple to remedy the situation on his own.

My friend Colin McCabe was flying to Austin earlier this month to attend the SXSW festival. His particular Delta flight was chilly. Or, as he put it, “meat locker cold.” The air vent was right over his head and could not be adjusted. He attempted to warm himself with a (free) blanket for 20 minutes to no avail. He notified the flight attendant of his discomfort and was told that there was nothing that she could do to adjust the temperature. Essentially, he was on his own.

That’s when the idea hit him. He grabbed the nearby SkyMall catalog, wedged it in the vent and completely blocked the flow of air raining down from above. He quickly became comfortable as the temperature by his seat increased. He had saved himself from the icy torment and cemented himself as a legend in the SkyMall Monday pantheon.

Sadly, the fix was temporary. The flight attendant told him that he had to remove the catalog as it was a “fire hazard.” Once again, he was besieged by gusts of frigid air as he flew south towards Texas.

Despite his thwarted attempt, we salute Colin for his quick-thinking (and for taking the photo above to share his experience).

Have you ever been so cold on a plane that you were at your wits’ end? What did you do to warm up? Share your tales of arctic airplanes in the comments.

Photo by Colin McCabe via Flickr.

Dengue Fever on the Rise in Mexico

The other night we were sitting with a friend enjoying a few Pacificos when he asked if he could turn the fan on to keep the mosquitoes away. As one who always get bitten by these bloodsucking irritants, I was more than happy for the fan to keep me bite-free. As he clicked the fan on, our friend casually mentioned that with the rainy season comes dengue fever, which is not too dangerous,”unless you get Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF)…”

Excuse me? The what?

Before we left on this trip we went to the travel clinic to get the necessary shots as well as the medications we might need. As we will be traveling through high-risk malaria areas we stocked up on anti-malarials and brought along a good supply of bug spray. I figured malaria, not dengue fever, would be our biggest health risk. Truth be told, I have never been too concerned with dengue. I know that it can make you quite ill, I know there are no drugs to treat it but what I didn’t realize was that you can potentially die from it.

Dengue fever is transmitted through female Aedes mosquitoes. They feed on an infected person and then, after an 8 to 10 day incubation period, they are able to pass on this illness for the rest of their lives. Dengue hemorrhagic fever is a much more serious version of dengue. It occurs as a result of complications and, with liver enlargement, circulatory failure and convulsions as part of its repertoire, it is potentially fatal.

Scary…right?

Dengue fever is on the rise in Mexico, Central America and South America according to the World Health Organisation. Since we are planning to spend a significant amount of time in Latin America I did some research and found out that in Mexico alone dengue hemorrhagic fever accounts for one out of every four cases of dengue fever compared to seven years ago when it was one of out fifty. This indicates that DHF is rapidly becoming a serious travel health issue. As if travelers don’t have enough to worry about with malaria and other infectious diseases, here is one that you just have to suffer through if you are unlucky enough to become infected.

So what do you have to look forward to if you contract this mosquito-borne illness?

Symptoms

Dengue fever is characterized by:

  • a flu-like feeling
  • fever
  • headache
  • joint ache
  • nausea / vomiting
  • swollen lymph nodes
  • decreased appetite

Dengue hemorrhagic fever include the above symptoms as well as:

  • a sudden rise in temperature
  • irritability
  • restlessness
  • extreme sweating
  • a shock-like state
  • bleeding may start to occur under the skin or in little pinpricks
  • rash

Treatment
As I mentioned there is no treatment for either dengue fever or the more severe DHF. Dengue fever should subside after the fever breaks. Tylenol as well as lots of liquids (to prevent dehydration) are recommended to ease discomfort. Should symptoms worsen, the patient needs to receive medical attention immediately as this illness can be fatal. DHF is best treated by medical professionals who have experience with this condition if possible.

Prevention
Prevention really is the key . If the mosquitoes don’t bite you, you will remain dengue-free!

  • Wear light-colored clothing to cover up bare skin especially at dawn and dusk when the “skeeters” are more likely to be out looking for a meal
  • Use repellent with 10% to 30% DEET (some people say this is worse for you…I say pick your poison. I’d rather take my chances with DEET than end up with a potentially life-threatening sickness)
  • Pay attention to the climate as rainy season is mosquito breeding season
  • Bring a mosquito net to protect yourself when sleeping
  • Mosquito coils! These are the best if you find yourself in a room infested with mosquitoes. (There are health reports claiming these coils are dangerous to your health so protect yourself by ensuring good ventilation when you use them.)
  • Some say taking Vitamin B will make you less attractive to these bloodsuckers but there is no scientific proof to back this up

Immunizations
Currently, the WHO is working towards finding a vaccine but at the present time none are available though it seems two potential vaccines have progressed to a stage where they may soon be tested.

The moral of this story is that dengue fever is on the rise in Mexico and in the rest of Latin America. It does pose a serious risk for travelers and, though, many health organizations are working towards solving the problem, it would be a wise idea to pack the bug-repellent (kid’s repellents tend be less harsh) and a good quality mosquito net before you set off on a Latin American adventure.

“No Wrong Turns”
chronicles Kelsey and her husband’s road trip — in real time — from Canada to the southern tip of South America in their trusty red VW Golf named Marlin.

UPDATE: Reader Mollyn suggests that Tylenol may not be as safe as simple Ibuprofen. Please check with your doctor before self-medicating, especially if you think you have Dengue Fever!

Moscow Heat Wave

Now Moscow isn’t exactly the place to hit the beach these days, but it’s interesting to note that, today, Moscow hit an all-time high winter temperature with a whopping 47.48 degrees F.

I don’t think they’ll be whipping out the sunscreen, but this is a surprise, considering how long official temperature records goes back: 1879. And this compares with a December average high temp of 27 F.

Of course, this comes on the back of last year’s near-record cold snap, when temps hit as low as -23.8 F (January 19, 2006), coming within a degree of record cold.

Even more surprising? This weekend may get even warmer. But don’t feel too bad for the heat-plagued Russians, though: they can always cool off in Vostok, Russia, where the record world low temp of -128.6 F was recorded back in 1983.