New resource helps women with diabetes through healthy pregnancies

Aug 3 2008

Pregnancy is a time of great excitement and anticipation. It also can be a time of anxiety, especially for women with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Pregnancy in women who have diabetes is automatically considered high-risk. But a new, easy-to-read booklet has information to help women with diabetes experience safe, healthy pregnancies.

For Women with Diabetes: Your Guide to Pregnancy is an illustrated, 44-page booklet that includes information about checking and controlling blood glucose - also called blood sugar levels, maintaining a healthy diet, staying physically active and taking tests and diabetes medications during pregnancy. The importance of planning for pregnancy and getting blood glucose levels under control before pregnancy to decrease the risk of birth defects associated with diabetes is emphasized. Logs for recording daily blood glucose and ketone levels, food intake and physical activity are included.

Produced by the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC), an information dissemination service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health, the new booklet is available at www.diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/pregnancy. A Spanish-language version of the booklet will be available soon.

To order a free copy of the publication, go to www.catalog.niddk.nih.gov. Copies also can be ordered by calling the Clearinghouse at 1-800-860-8747 or writing to the NDIC at 1 Information Way, Bethesda MD 20892-3560.

The Clearinghouse also has an easy-to-read booklet about gestational diabetes and many other resources about diabetes in English and Spanish. The A-to-Z list of topics and titles at www.diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/a-z.asp lists all of these resources in alphabetical order. All NDIC publications are available free of charge.

The NDIC was created in 1978 to increase knowledge and understanding about diabetes among patients, health care professionals and the general public. To carry out this mission, the NDIC works closely with the NIDDK's research programs; the National Diabetes Education Program; professional, patient and voluntary associations; and government agencies to identify and respond to informational needs about diabetes and its management.

The NIDDK, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducts and supports research on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutrition and obesity; and kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases. Spanning the full spectrum of medicine and afflicting people of all ages and ethnic groups, these diseases encompass some of the most common, severe and disabling conditions affecting Americans.