Care for pregnant women with diabetes

Diabetes is the most common metabolic complication of pregnancy. Before the discovery of insulin, diabetes often made it impossible for
a pregnant woman to carry a healthy baby to term. Since the introduction of insulin therapy the prognoses for pregnant women with
diabetes have improved. However, the disease not only has an impact on the health and life of pregnant women but the variety of symptoms
manifested by fetuses of diabetic mothers is also a significant challenge in neonatal care. The introduction of modern methods of
biophysical monitoring of the fetus in the recent years has made it easier to determine the term of delivery and consequently has resulted in
reducing the mortality rate of full-term fetuses. Simultaneously, clinical tests have revealed that care for a woman before she gets pregnant
and during the first trimester, considerably decreases the frequency of congenital defects in children of such women compared to children
of women suffering from diabetes not cared for before conception. It is thus important to give medical care to all pregnant women with
diabetes already in the preconception period. Therefore doctors and midwives caring for pregnant women should perform early diagnostics
of GDM based on the latest medical recommendations and other members of the healthcare team should provide broadly understood
education of women suffering from diabetes, aimed at glycaemia normalization and prevention of complications.

Nursing Topics 2010; 18 (3): 348-352