[sviskan]

Hi

I am type I and pregnant with my first child. Things are going good, but this period is also stressful. I am wondering when you with type I diabetes have given birth in relation to your expected due date.

Thank you for all your answers.

[Georgia]

Hi there & congratulations on your pregnancy. I'm pregnant with my 1st too & my Ob has said he is aiming to deliver my baby around 38/39 weeks.

[cheryl]

Hi,

I have had four children, I was diagnoised at age 12. Most of the time and with all of my lovely boys, I was enduced at 38 weeks. Cause three of my boys were all about 8 pounds by this point circa NPH. When I was pregnant with my last son Jacob I was on Lantus, and he was only 6'6 and they told me I could wait, but I was so anxious and since I was a veteran they enduced me at 38 weeks.....


Info, when the baby comes out, they test his bg if it is alright, you get to hold him for that first hour......back in the 90's and in 2000 they took them straight away to the NICU, so thank goodness for change my last two I got to hold for an hour. As long as everything looks good at birth, they go to the regular new born baby nursery and they check the babies bg like every hr or 2hrs for the first 24 hrs. The baby can stay in your room no problem. I breast fed my last two, but with my third one I let them give him formula and with my fourth I breast fed but his bg went to 38 so I insisted the nurses to give him formula, sometimes we arent' leaking faucets at first. He was fine no worries. But they want the babies bg to be over 40 for that first 24 hrs if not they will try giving the baby formula if it doesn't help it might have to go to the NICU. Now this did not happen to my last two children so no fear, but when my first two were in NICU, they were given dextrose IV fluids and once the crucial 24 hrs hit they were sent back to the reg nursery, so there shouldn't be any fears, like I said......the babies will be way taken care of and my last two never had to go since they changed the way they did babies of diabetic mothers.

Good luck
Cheryl

[Keezheekoni]

I've had five children. You asked when the child was born in relation to the due date.

1st: born 5 days after due date
2nd: born 6 weeks early (PROM)
3rd: born 4 days before due date
4th: born 3 days after due date (induction that I wish I hadn't agreed to)
5th: born 8 weeks early (due to pre-eclampsia)

I have really quick L&Ds. I "caught" my 5th child since I seemed to be the only person ready for her to come out! LOL

My 4th had low bgs, but I pumped and they finger fed her. She had actually lost her suck reflex during her "traumatic" birth, so about a week later she was hospitalized for dehydration, and it was actually a speech therapist at the hospital who taught me an exercise to do with her to get her to suck properly. That was a scary experience though! I don't recommend inductions at all...at least the kind that I had.

[sviskan]

I have to leave home a whole month before due date to be closer to the hospital. I am really hoping that I wont have to spend too much time away from home. But of course I will do what is best for my baby.

[ladytaz]

Well I'm type 2 now, but had Gestational Diabetes 20 years ago with my last pregnancy. They were SUPPOSED to induce my labor on a certain date, but an ultra sound was performed a month or so before that time and THEY determined that I was actually due 3 weeks later than originally thought! I told them THEY were WRONG, I KNOW exactly when I got pregnant, not to mention that it was physically impossible, my body had never run on a 3 or 6 week schedule! But, they didn't listen, and my daughter was born almost 3 weeks late (right on target according to them!). Her being late was confirmed by the labor/delivery nurse! They put me and her at risk! They just don't know how lucky they are that everything went well! It still upsets me tho to this day! Today, my daughter turned 20 years old, and besides a speech impediment, she's been VERY healthy!

[issysmommy]

Oh, goodness...congratulations!!!

For me, pregnancy was one of the best and one of the worst times in my life. From what I have read, heard, and seen, it is different for everyone though. And I am amazed that already in the year 2007 there are such amazing changes from just 6 years ago.

My BGs instantly went haywire...which makes total sense, since it totally affects your hormones when you are pregnant. I was (and still am) on the pump (insulin pump, that is), so that helped, but my pregancy insulin amounts were around 180 units a day or more (about three times my usual amount).

I also had only been married for about 6 months and we were barely getting used to being newlyweds. So my emotions were UP and DOWN a lot!!! I had also heard a lot of different statistics about the babies of pregnant diabetics that scared me.

And in the end, I had a BEAUTIFUL (babies of diabetics come out so pretty and round) 8 pound 13 ounce baby girl two and a half weeks early. She did have to be taken immediately to the NICU, but I was glad to have a break for them to stitch me up (I opted for a c-section when she was sonograming to be as big as 11 pounds possibly). I also opted immediately for formula, because I was ready for her body to not depend on anything about my body. Looking back now, I would have been more able to breast feed if I had been around others who had and been more proactive about learning. It is not the easiest thing in the world, but it does have amazing benefits. But I had to not beat myself up for not breast feeding.

I really stressed myself out everytime my BGs went high because I knew that her little body was producing insulin to help my body bring down my BG. Then the stress would contribute to higher BGs. It was an awful vicious cycle.

So, having said all that, I'd like to strongly encourage you to get a strong network of support around you--whether it is your church, your family, your friends, or a support group. And in the end, I have to tell you that I would have done it all over again.

I tend to tell it like it is so that others know that they are o.k. if they go through the same things. I hope that you don't have the struggles with all the emotional stuff as I did, but if you do, please feel free to PM me or email me. And keep active on this board. I think you will find a lot of strength here.

Take care...and enjoy this miracle...it is amazing to think that God is forming a LIFE inside of you.

[sandyhandz]

Hi - I'm also a first time, diabetic mom. I'm currently 35 weeks. My doc wants to do a second amnio at 37 weeks to determine fetal lung maturity so he can take the baby at 37-38 weeks. I guess babies of DMs have slower lung development than other babies.

However, we're going to refuse the amnio. My baby has been measuring small for gestation and my last two A1Cs were 5.6 and 6.3. So I feel my sugars are pretty well controlled. I don't want to be induced early.

My doc is high risk and I guess most of the DMs have large babies, so he typically induces at 37-38 weeks.

Hope that helps! and good luck!!

[josie p]

When I had my children it was standard practice to induce at 37/38 weeks then down to the SCBU to be monitored and weened off your insulin...

I had one daughter before I became diabetic and 2 after diabetes.There ages are 21,17,16...

But I'm sure that the size of my babies were more due to the fact I was destained to have large babies rather than a major input of my diabetes..... I've supported this by not only my oldest daughters weight at birth, but also my own birth weight being born at 8lbs and 9oz is a good weight for a single birth, but I am a twin and my twin was smaller at 6lbs 8oz which isnt a bad weight either... But poor old mum was only 5ft heigh!

Oldest 11 days early 10lb 10oz
both others were induced
2nd 38 weeks @ 10lbs 12 1/2oz
3rd 37 weeks@ 11lbs 13oz

But whats got to be remembered was when I had mine chidren it was a case of 2 jabs a day to get you through and the insulins availble wasn't as friendy as the ones that we use today.... So keeping good control through out your pregnancy was a bit of a hit and miss afare....

But the 2 youngest spent about a week each in the special baby care unit, being monitored and weened of my insulin...

I never breast fed any of my children, but I did have to laugh when the tried to feed my son for the first time... for the fist 24 hours is was common practice to provide fluids via a drip, and then start them on a measured feed to see what happened to there blood sugars... Try feeding a 5ml feed via a formular bottle! clings to the side and doesn't come out! so the nurses improvised with a clean urine speciem bottle with a teat taped on top with surgical tape;-)

[turtle72]

I was diagnosed as being diabetic at approx 24 wks into my pregnancy 5 yrs ago. I had my daughter at 38 wks as they told me she was a big baby. After 18 hrs of labour and failure to progress she was delivered by emergency c-section and she wasn't that big at all. She was 8lb 13oz (4kg for the Americans ) and she lost exactly 1lb within the first week due to fluids which was due to my diabetes.

One thing I did hate about my labour was the fact that I was convinced into have an epidural as only the day before I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and they wanted to get my blood pressure down, but this meant that I was stuck on back for 18 hrs with 3 drips in one hand and 2 drips in the other, a wire for the epidural hanging out of my back and wire that was attached to the babies head hanging ot from between my legs. I wasextremely uncomfortable and to top it all off the epidural only partially worked. It numbed my legs but I could still feel all the pain. My baby and I were also lying back to back which added to the pain.

I'm hoping to try for another baby, as soon as I've got this diabetes under control and lose some weight, but this ime I won't be so easily talked into things.

My advice is to question your doctors and not to fear them, they are not always right.

[Tvro]

I had an emergency c section 6 weeks before my due date. During a non stress test (where they monitor the baby's heart) which my Dr. wanted me to have every other day, my baby's heartbeat was going too low. The Dr. said this was because the diabetes made the placenta hard and it had stopped doing it's job. My baby son was born healthy, and just turned 21 last month !

[amyjo29]

I had gestational with my daughter and she was born 5 days early. My doctor had guessed she weighted almost 8lbs so they wanted to induce me a few days before my due date. She was born at exactly 39 weeks and weighed 6lbs 10oz. Her blood sugar was at 33 so they had to give her sugar water and had a touch of jaundice. The next day we found out she has GERD and 4 months later she was diagnosed with RAD but other than that she is healthy and so happy. Once she starts walking she will grow out of the GERD and RAD so I'm not worried cause she is a very content baby and never cries unless she's hungry.

[kel4han]

Can I just ask.....why did some of your babies have LOW blood sugar?

[Keezheekoni]

If your bgs are high during pregnancy, the baby's pancreas works overtime pushing out insulin... so after they're born, you're not giving them a high glucose load anymore, but their pancreas thinks that it's still getting that much. Baby goes low. That's all...

[srpkinja]

Congrats, Sviskan!
I'm not T1 (still testing whether its T1.5 or 2), but I was on intensive ins therapy during the pregnancy and delivered my baby girl 10 days before the term, via cesarian section. Everything went well, thanx God )
Here in Serbia they always perform CS on diabetic ladies, not because the size of the baby (mine was just over 3 kg) but because it's hard to regulate glucose/insulin infusions during the labor. I really admire the ladies above who have 4 or 5 kids, I have only two, and with the first one, 10 years ago, I had no health problems whatsoever. But now, even though everything ended just fine, I would never think of another pregnancy, this was pretty stressful for me and I had to stay in the hospital 4 times- 3 times for one week at ginecology hospital and one time at Endocrinology, because they were not able to control my BG. I gained ony 9 kg during the pregnancy, and was on a strict diet all the time...
So my best wishes, and keep us informed how things are going on!
Srpkinja