Early Labor in Trip Home

Hi everyone.

Slightly odd question but not sure where else to find the info...

Heading home to NY for Thanksgiving, a trip which was planned before my current pregnancy.  Will be about 31 weeks when we go.

I have no health insurance back home.  In the UK on a spousal visa, further leave to remain. 

Just curious, if I go into early labor when in NY will I need to pay out of pocket?  Or does any of the NHS coverage count or travel insurance??? 

Just curious really.  Ha!


Thanks for any help/info you may have!

You will either need trip insurance or to pay out of pocket. The NHS doesn't have any kind of reciprocal agreement with the US.

Do you have travel insurance?  If not, you'll need a policy that will cover a pregnancy.  It won't be cheap but you need to buy it.  32/33 weeks is when my pregnancy went from normal to high risk.  There's every chance you won't need it, but if you do...

That's what I thought. 

Thanks for the help!  Wasn't sure how to google this or what website to check out.

This forum is always so helpful.

Oh yeah, DEFINITELY get travel insurance! We had a policy with Lloyd's that we unfortunately had to use when my son ended up in the ICU with a chest infection, and they paid for everything. It's definitely worth the price, which isn't actually that bad - we pay a couple hundred quid for a year's worth of insurance for our family of three and can travel anywhere in the world. (You pay extra to include the US in your coverage.)

You should also be aware though that a lot of travel insurance policies won't cover you if you're traveling too close to your due date, so be sure to check that out. We currently have travel insurance through the Post Office (which we haven't had to use, thankfully!) and they wouldn't cover me to travel back to the States within a month of my due date.

Travel insurance.  May cost you a bit of money given your pregnancy, but definitely what you need to do.

I've used it when my husband and myself both started puking on our way to the airport and weren't fit to travel back from a trip to the USA and therefore had to reschedule our flight from that night.  It was easy to claim back and we had no issues whatsover with claiming with either of them. This included flight change costs with the long haul airline, plus a completely new easyjet flight to get home to Scotland and a train ticket to get home, because we couldn't fly into our closest airport as the flight was sold out, and the extra accommodation and food costs,  urgent care appointment and anti-nausea Rx, (which was a bit crazy to have to use up medical resources for a puke bug and I can tell they were annoyed, but needs must when you're claiming on this kind of stuff....). No problems, I had an excess of £50 and hubby had an excess of £100, so it was still worth it.  I have an annual policy through Amex (contracted to Axa) because I have a pre-existing condition so it's cheaper and he had a single policy through John Lewis (contracted to Ageas).