Scuba Diving and Pregnancy - is it completely off-limits?

Hi All,

Hoping someone may be able to assist with this query.

I'm not pregnant (yet! but hoping soon!) and we've booked a holiday to the Whitsundays in 3 weeks' time. We're hoping to do a bit of scuba diving at the reef, but not likely to go below 15 metres - because it's near the surface that the colours are at their best anyway.

I know you're not meant to dive during pregnancy, but I do wonder how early is generally meant by that rule? I'm just in my TWW now, so if I get pregnant this cycle, I'll only be about 3 weeks post-conception (ie 6 week's pregnant) at the time we go diving.

Anyone got any ideas? Obviously I don't want to risk anything !

Sharon,

My DF has just done his dive ticket and it said that pregnant women should not dive. It didnt say when when from. If it were me, and I was pg on the trip, I wouldnt go scuba diving, especially not at 6wks when early pregnancy is the most important.

You should know by the time you are on holidays if you are pg. And if you are then you may just need to snorkle!! And if you arent, then enjoy your diving :)

Deni, the rising levels of nitorgen in the blood are the issue. I would check and see if you are pg at the time before you decide. I was in a similar situation - I was all set to dive White Island (a cool underwater volcano in NZ) when I was 6 weeks pg, so I had to give it a miss. If you stayed above 5 metres you should be ok though, because from memory the dive tables permit diving at that level for extended periods of time (nitrogen levels are low/negligible. I would err on the side of caution though, and maybe stick to snorkellng.

It sucks I know - this will be my third year of no diving due to pg or BF but it is sooooo worth it :) (BTW, I think you can dive when BF, but my boy was so tiny when summer came around that it was logistically too difficult to organise....)

Thanks for your input girls. I tend to agree - if I'm UTD I will be so happy i'm sure I won't care about missing diving anyway !!

apparently there's fabulous snorkling venues anyway along the reef, so I'll be able to do that at the very least.

I went to Vanuatu while preg with my first and was told not to dive by my Ob. This was the same guy who said to me earlier you are not sick you are pregnant do everything you normally do (I was in landscaping at the time) so if he said not to dive I would assume its a no no.

when i went to the reef i snorkled - it's all so close to the surface that you're not missing out on anything!

have fun!