We offer antenatal classes that cover all the topics below and more.
Diabetes in pregnancy
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a condition that causes a person’s blood sugar level to become too high.
There are different types of diabetes:
- type 1 diabetes – a lifelong condition where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells that produce insulin
- type 2 diabetes – where the body does not produce enough insulin, or the body’s cells do not react to insulin properly
- gestational diabetes – high blood sugar that develops during pregnancy is known as gestational diabetes; it usually goes away after giving birth
More information
How to stay healthy in pregnancy
It is important that you eat well and stay active during your pregnancy to help maintain your blood sugar levels. You will be advised to monitor your blood sugar levels regularly during pregnancy.
We would recommend you to colostrum harvest from 36 weeks of pregnancy. This is where you hand express your breasts and collect any first milk (colostrum) that may come out.
There are lots more information about hand expressing on our infant feeding page.
Monitoring in pregnancy
During pregnancy you will be looked after by the diabetic team, which included an obstetrician (a doctor of pregnancy), a doctor that specialises in diabetes, a diabetic nurse, a specialist diabetes midwife and a dietician.
We will advise you to monitor your blood sugar levels daily and record these. We will offer growth scans during your pregnancy to monitor baby’s growth and development.
Some women may need medication during pregnancy to control their diabetes; this can be tablet form or injections. Some women will control their diabetes with diet and exercise.
More information
Plan for birth
A plan for your baby’s birth will be discussed with you during your pregnancy.
Lots of women with diabetes will be offered induction of labour, where we start labour off with medication. This is to reduce some of the risks associated with diabetes. The timing will vary based on your individual circumstance however this is usually offered before or around your due date.
We will need to monitor your blood sugar levels during labour to ensure these are remaining stable. We will also recommend continuous monitoring of baby’s heartbeat in labour by using a CTG machine.
More information
Postnatal
We want all babies to have skin to skin contact immediately after birth for at least an hour. This helps baby to feel calm and helps baby’s brain to grow.
Babies should be offered a feed within the first 30 minutes following birth to help regulate their blood sugars. We will also advise monitoring baby’s blood sugar following the birth. This may mean we advise you stay in hospital for at least 24 hours or more, so we can monitor baby and ensure feeding is going well.
We will advise what medication you need to take after the birth if it is needed.
