Mothers living with type one diabetes face an additional set of challenges while keeping up with the demands of raising children.
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Midwife and diabetes educator Belinda Moore said once women were discharged from hospital, they often had to deal with these challenges on their own.
These included managing blood sugar levels and working out insulin-to-carbohydrate ratio while dealing with sleep deprivation and the strain of breastfeeding.
“All those little things cause mothers to run really low with their blood sugars and that is quite confronting to the point where they will actually walk away from breastfeeding because they have this real fear of dropping their baby,” Ms Moore said.
“In the first several months after having a baby your diabetes sits on the back bench, it’s really hard to look after it… and there is a lot of guilt.
“One of the biggest things is just being able to talk to other women who are going through the same thing.”
This is why Ms Moore has created the support group Bump, Baby and Beyond, with catch ups throughout the year on different days and at different locations to give mothers the best possible chance to attend.
One of the mothers involved is Eleasha Kohn, who is also participating in the Environmental Determinants of Islet Autoimmunity study into pregnancy and type one diabetes.
She was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, but was told she had type one diabetes when pregnant with her third child Briella. The study hopes to pinpoint when this change occurred.
“We have several women who have gestational diabetes in pregnancy and most of them are at risk of developing type two diabetes, but there is actually a small but increasing number of those women going onto develop type one,” Ms Moore said.
Ms Kohn said the support group was motivating and helped her stay on track.
“When you’re doing it on your own it’s easy to fall off the wagon, you don’t really want to deal with it so you push it to the side and pretend it’s not there,” she said.
For more information or to get in touch go to Bump, Baby and Beyond mother’s group on Facebook or visit www.diabetesvic.org.au.