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.