Can I go into a hot tub or sauna while I'm pregnant?

Can I go into a hot tub or sauna while I'm pregnant?

Jay Goldberg (Obstetrician/Gynecologist, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) gives expert video advice on: Can I have artificial sweeteners while I'm pregnant?; Can I get my hair colored or my nails done during my pregnancy?; Can I smoke during my pregnancy? and more...

I would consult your health care provider because different health care providers actually feel differently about that, with respect to going into a sauna or a hot tub in pregnancy. My recommendation is that you can get into a hot bath tub, you can get it as hot as you want and get into the bath tub, but don't add hot water. So once you get into the tub and it starts to cool off, don't add more hot water. So if you're at the gym doing your <a href="http://www.videojug.com/interview/pregnancy-exercise">pregnancy exercise</a>, you can get into a sauna or jacuzzi, but I usually recommend no more for than a short period of time, like two to maybe three minutes tops. The concern about prolonged periods of time in a sauna or a hot tub are that the baby is actually insulated within you and can get to one to two degrees even hotter. So, an example would be if you were to have a cold or the flu and have a fever, and a hundred and three fever, typically the baby is probably a hundred, a hundred and four or higher, and so we recommend that you take Tylenol to bring your fever down. So to go into a place that you know you are raising the temperature of the baby a degree hotter than the hundred and three degree hot tub is not safe. So a short period of time is okay, but prolonged is not safe.