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Pregnancy worries

L

LauraNoraLoo

Well-Known Member
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Before i start, i want to stress that i am NOT pregnant and dont plan to be for some time :)

I recently attending a DAFNE course (best thing that i ever did, would highly recommend it!) and we covered lots of subjects that i have never really thought about with diabetes - pregnancy, sex, driving, job etc.

Now, i want children very much, if i was in the situation where i could support a child now and had a long term partner then i would love to become a mum ( my mates think im crazy!). But i have got to admit, the infomation that i was given at the time has caused many many worries about the time when i do become pregnant.

You need to have such tight control and i have never gained control of my diabetes in the 11 years of having it! they stressed this fact so much and stressed that high blood sugars can affect the baby, which obviuously is the last thing that i want to do. Alot more other things were talked about but i just feel like almost scared to have a baby now.

I never thought (maybe niavely) that diabeters had such a affect on pregnany.

I guess im just looking for people (mainly women) who have done the whole having babies thing with diabetes to share their experiences and put me a bit more at ease!

Laura x
 
Hi LauraNooraNoo - I just had a baby and yes it was very difficult but it is possible, I had a healthy little boy and he's doing fine. Don't worry things are a lot better for pregnant diabetics than they used to be and the level of medical care I got was very high standard, I had constant access to diabetes nurses/ dieticians etc saw a doctor regularly and basically they do all they can to make sure you are ok. The most important thing, which I didn't realise at the time, is to get your blood sugars under control before you try to conceive as when the babys organs are forming in the first 8 weeks if you are not under control then they can malform. You will be strictly targeted not to go above 7.8 (or some doctors say 7) after meals and need to test before and after every meal and at the beginning and end of the day (so lots of testing) so I ended up feeling like a pin cushion but its all worth it in the end. One thing to mention though is that being pregnant can make pre existing retinopathy worsen, as it did in my case, particularly if you go from poor to tight control very quickly - another reason to get things all under control before you even try to conceive. Another pitfall for me (and a lot of diabetic pregnant ladies) is that you can lose your hypo awareness, in the end I did not feel a hypo until in the low 2s, so made driving/working a bit tricky but its only a temporary situation that resolves once the baby is born and you don't have to have such tight control any more. Hope that answers some of your queries.
 
thank you for replying and making me believe that i have nothing to worry about and it can be done!

it was the one thing that made me worry coming out of the DAFNE course! but thanks for settling the worries and hope your little boy is all well!
 
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