Planning pregnancy type 1

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jencee96

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Pronouns
She/Her
Hi,

Me and my partner have discussed planning our first pregnancy maybe at the end of this year. All the information is very over whelming online and I’m waiting on my consultant appointment coming through to discuss everything. I take Novorapid daily and carb count. And my night insulin is degludec.

I am grateful for any advice, rights, wrongs and any information which will be helpful for me in this process. I’m new to this forum so thankyou everyone in advance.
Jenna
 
Welcome @jencee96 🙂 Your clinic should run a pre-conception clinic. You could maybe give them a call and ask? The important things pre-pregnancy are obviously to have a good HbA1C but you’ll also need a special high dose folic acid tablet every day. This needs to be taken pre-conception so you could start it now.

I’ve had three pregnancies with Type 1 andi found the JDRF pregnancy toolkit helpful, along with a very basic graph in Think Like A Pancreas that showed when insulin needs were likely to increase/decrease.

You might also be entitled to a pump and/or loop and an upgrade of your CGM. The pre-conception clinic should help with that.

Other important things are to eat well, sleep well and relax. Preparing your body for pregnancy is a good idea whether you’re diabetic or not. Finally, as with the Type 1, try to ‘be your own expert’ as much as possible. Read up on pregnancy, read up on diabetes in pregnancy, learn about active birth and hypnobirthing, etc, etc.
 
Thankyou so much for the reply. I’ll call tomorrow and find out. They haven’t gave me a date for my appointment yet either and don’t wanna leave it to late. Not sure what my last hba1c was either. Appreciate your help and advice!
 
jencee96 said:
Thankyou so much for the reply. I’ll call tomorrow and find out. They haven’t gave me a date for my appointment yet either and don’t wanna leave it to late. Not sure what my last hba1c was either. Appreciate your help and advice!
Click to expand...
This link to the DUK site may help you prepare with questions for your appointment.

Planning for a pregnancy when you have diabetes

Most women with diabetes have a healthy baby. But planning for pregnancy when you have diabetes is really important. Having diabetes means that you and your baby are more at risk of serious health complications during pregnancy and childbirth. The good news is that by planning ahead and getting...
www.diabetes.org.uk www.diabetes.org.uk
 
jencee96 said:
Thankyou so much for the reply. I’ll call tomorrow and find out. They haven’t gave me a date for my appointment yet either and don’t wanna leave it to late. Not sure what my last hba1c was either. Appreciate your help and advice!
Click to expand...

You’re welcome 🙂 Here’s the Toolkit I mentioned:

jdrf.org.uk

Pregnancy toolkit | Breakthrough T1D UK

This toolkit gives you information about what to expect when you’re living with type 1 diabetes and are planning a pregnancy.
jdrf.org.uk jdrf.org.uk

.
 
I can’t really add to what others have said other than say not all diabetics pregnancies do as predicated. I never got the usual insulin resistance in the third trimester, actually I was on very little insulin at all. I was only on about 4 units of background and my team had considered stopping that.
Oh and I didn’t get morning sickness in the first trimester but I did get it second and third anytime my blood sugar got near hypo range.
But now my baby is 13 and happy (grumpy) and healthy as any teenager, so it was worth it.
Even if you are eager I wouldn’t rush into it until your body is ready and these things can take time so try to be patient. It’s hard because it should be a very exciting time.
Take care
 
Aw thankyou so much! I definitely don’t want to rush and keen to research and do what is best to have a healthy baby. It’s such an exciting time but so worrying as a diabetic. Thankyou so much for sharing your experience though I appreciate it!
 
jencee96 said:
Aw thankyou so much! I definitely don’t want to rush and keen to research and do what is best to have a healthy baby. It’s such an exciting time but so worrying as a diabetic. Thankyou so much for sharing your experience though I appreciate it!
Click to expand...
The Pregnancy section on the forum has other peoples posts on their journeys, that really helped me with mine. Don't read mine we had an awful time from start to finish. But the care now is so much better for us and the tech has changed everything.

The JDFR guide is great, I just read it myself, that's what reminded me that we don't all have the same reaction. Just be prepared for changes, all the time, that's what I will say. And all the extra scans to check are baby are a nice extra. When they are bigger and you can see the details, like her playing with her hair (as she still does now) twirling it in her fingers, unborn but already with character will be one of my favorite memorises of our pregnancy. And that we had so many scans, both of our mums, and even my brother could be part of the experience too.

There's a T1 athlete I follow on Instgram who just had her baby, she did some great posts about her levels, worth looking at if you are on there https://www.instagram.com/katehall2043?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
 
Aw thankyou so much for your reply! How far into the pregnancy do you get scans? And what is the interval in between them? I’ll have a look at her page now! Appreciate your advice and help x
 
jencee96 said:
Aw thankyou so much for your reply! How far into the pregnancy do you get scans? And what is the interval in between them? I’ll have a look at her page now! Appreciate your advice and help x
Click to expand...

I had scans every two weeks max at the end of pregnancy. They keep a really good eye on you and I found the care excellent. They offered me a scan at 7 weeks but I didn’t bother with that one. I just had the normal 12 weeks scan, which was lovely.
 
Inka said:
I had scans every two weeks max at the end of pregnancy. They keep a really good eye on you and I found the care excellent. They offered me a scan at 7 weeks but I didn’t bother with that one. I just had the normal 12 weeks scan, which was lovely.
Click to expand...
I had a scan for dating at about 6 weeks, then 12, then 18, 20. Then I am not sure as a few random things happened, I think we ended up with more, it went to 2 weeks at one point and then it would have been weekly but then they kept me in at 34 weeks and induced her.
We saw her loads before she was born.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top