Fasten your seatbelts – family air travel is heading for turbulence. Children are becoming persona non grata in the supposedly friendly skies.
London’s Daily Mail reports that several major airlines are considering child-free sections on aircraft and child-free flights. The Wall Street Journal asks, “Will new airline seating proposals create “baby ghettos” in the back of [...]

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Tags: airline baggage fees, airlines, annoying children on airplane, babies on airplane, baby discrimination, baby ghettos, baby segregation, bulkhead seats, business travelers, child-free aircraft, child-free flights, child-friendly flights, family air travel, family boarding, family flights, family seating, family travel, frequent flyers, infants on airplanes, major airlines, middle seat airplane, non-collapsible strollers

This is Part 2 of a two part series. To read Part 1, please click here.
You need not be under suspicion of possessing narcotics to be hassled by security and customs inspectors at airports. Families have been hassled for merely carrying everyday, over-the-counter medications, have had the medications confiscated, missed their flights and, very rarely, [...]

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Tags: Air Travel, airport, antibiotic, asia, breast pumps, children medication, codeine, doxycycline, families, hyperactivity, ill children, kids, Medications, nebulizers, overseas, pseudoephedrine

Are infants likely to catch colds and other infectious diseases during air travel? 
I have been asked that question hundreds of times, more than any other involving children and travel. And even though I’ve had decades in pediatrics and travel medicine to think about it, read all I could find on the subject, and talked [...]

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Children/Airport Security/ New Rules
Good news for parents traveling by air with their children. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that it is easing airport security screening procedures for children under the age of 12 years, and is also easing the rules for carrying liquid medications. But expect occasional exceptions to the new rules.
Here [...]

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Tags: Air Travel, airport screening children, airport screening kids, airport screening rules for kids, airport security checks for kids, does my child have to remove shoes at airport, effect of metal detectors on children, full body images, kid medication, metal detectors, pat-down, rules about children at airport screening, security checks kids, tsa children

Caution: travel is hazardous for children who are not fully immunized. And it doesn’t matter who is doing the traveling – your child or perfect strangers.
• Example: Last month, a woman with a communicable case of measles traveled by air from London to New Mexico, stopping at airports in Baltimore, Denver, and Albuquerque. Similar [...]

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Tags: Air Travel, aircraft, chickenpox, contagious viral disease, immunized, Malaria, measles, measles autism wakefield, new vaccines, pertussis, polio, quarantine, rubella, Travel, travel-related diseases, traveling overseas, vaccinating children, vaccine-preventable diseases, Venice, whooping cough

• Infants are the only items on an aircraft that need not be battened down for takeoff, turbulence and landing.  In case of severe turbulence or survivable crashes, an unrestrained 20-pound (9 kilos) infant sitting on your lap effectively and instantaneously becomes a 300-pound weight  (136 kilos) that you cannot restrain. Such infants have hit the ceiling of [...]

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Tags: aviation safety, CARES, child air safety, child airplane safety, Child Aviation Restraint System, child restraint system, child restraint systems, CRS, in-flight safety, Infants

For many people one of the biggest fear of flying is sitting next to a screaming child, says the New York Times,  “Please Refrain from Tantrums Aboard,” (November 14.)
According to the article, some travelers are doing some fussing of their own. They’re calling for airlines to implement child-free flights, designate “family-only” sections, or provide seat [...]

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Tags: Air Travel, airlines, antihistamines, child-free flights, children, children flying, crying, ear pain, family only flights, flying, flying with kids, infant sleeping patterns, Infants, kids, why infants cry in flight

Skip your hot tea and coffee when flying with young children – and hope that passengers in adjacent seats do the same.
Every year hundreds of passengers, many of them children, are burned by such beverages spilling on them. The combination of hot drinks, crowding, turbulence, and children is a formula for an accident waiting to [...]

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Tags: Air Travel, aisle seats, children, coffee burn, coffee spill, hazards, hot beverages, hot coffee, hot tea, injuries, overhead bins, turbulence

Recently a four-week old infant died on a flight from Washington to Kuwait. The probable cause was the mother accidentally smothered the baby when the mother fell asleep while nursing her infant.
This tragic event does not mean that nursing is unsafe during air travel. As far as is known this is the first time such [...]

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Tags: Air Travel, air travel with infants, breast-feed, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, Dr. Karl Neumann, Dr. Neumann, Forest Hills Pediatrics, health and safety, infant death, Kids Travel Doc, kids travel doctor, Kuwait flight, nursing, pediatric advice, pre-flight examination, smothered

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 [...]

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Tags: Air Travel, Ear infections, ear problems, ear problems air travel, flight, Infants, pediatric travel advice, safe to travel, travel safety, young children