Road trip

lindsaypiittmann

I'm going on a road trip for the Fourth of July, and I've heard that when you're preggo, you need to stop and walk or else you can get blood clots in your legs. Is this true? I'm 10 weeks with my first baby. How often should I stop?

brideandbreve

I took a road trip last summer while I was 24 weeks pregnant, and we made stops every 4 hours or so.

I'd say if you're making stops periodically, that should be sufficient, but be sure that you stop if you need to or if you're starting to feel cramped in the vehicle. 

ac1259

If you don't need to stop basically just don't sit perfectly still...your leg muscles return blood from your legs and it's when you sit still that blood kinda pools in your legs and can lead to clots. Every now and then just tighten and relax your calf muscles and that should help. Even better if you have compression hose just wear those in the car. But it is more of an issue later in the pregnancy. Hope this helps!

AshleyDoll

I just drove 7 hours yesterday and as much s I needed to stop and pee, I wouldn't worry. But that's mainly for if you're further along and have a larger baby sitting on everything. I think my midwife told me about 20ish weeks is when they worry about blood clots. I was in the hospital for a few days with one of my girls and about 22 weeks and they wouldn't let me out of bed and put these horrid things on my legs that sat there tightening my legs and "massaging" them. OMG I hated them. I told them they were driving me crazy and they had me wear these horrid stocking things that when up to my calves and I had to rotate them. Sorry for the jumbled novel lol