Ask pediatricians whether infants and young children can travel by air with ear infections and the likely answer is, no, they cannot.
Ask pediatricians if they have ever seen a child with serious ear issues resulting from air travel and the likely answer is, no, they have not.
There is virtually nothing in the medical literature to make evidence-based decisions about ear infections/air travel. And while saying “no” is prudent, it may ruin long-planned family trips. Occasionally, families are stranded on vacation, told that they cannot fly home until the infection resolves – and who knows when that is.
One reason for pediatricians saying “no” is the fear that air travel will cause pain or damage the ear. Children, as do adults, occasionally experience pain when they fly. But one small study shows that children with ear infections are less likely to have pain than children without infections. The plausible reason is that middle ear infections are often accompanied by fluid in the middle ear. Normally there is air there. And changes in atmospheric pressure during ascent and descent of the aircraft causes the air to expand and contract, both of which may cause pain. Simply stated: no air, no pain.
Ask pediatric otolaryngologists (ENTs) and aviation physicians the same questions. The vast majority has never seen a problem and would allow children with ear infections to travel by air. A small number have seen mild changes in the eardrum that were possibly related to air travel. But none contacted had personally seen or heard of a case where air travel caused serious, on-going ear pathology in this age group despite the fact that millions of children fly each year.
These findings do not mean that air travel for infants and young children with ear infections has been proven 100% safe. But the findings are based on mail surveys of more than one hundred professors of pediatric ENT at major medical centers in the US and Europe, interviews with dozens of other pediatric ENTs, from shows of hands at three conferences of aviation medicine physicians and at numerous pediatric meetings – and from fifty years of intense personal involvement in pediatrics and travel medicine. These findings seem sufficient to warrant questioning conventional wisdom and starting a dialogue on this subject.
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