Patient
Services: Diabetes in
Pregnancy Program
 The Diabetes in
Pregnancy Program offers a unique comprehensive multidisciplinary
approach to the management of patients who have diabetes during
pregnancy. It is the only program providing this multidisciplinary
approach (combining diabetes, nutrition and prenatal obstetrical care)
in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.
This program currently
has approximately 250 active patients with diabetes of varying severity
who are either co-managed with referring physicians or receiving
complete obstetrical and diabetes care. Services provided include
preconception counseling and management, comprehensive gestational
diabetes consultation and management, comprehensive diabetes education,
and nutritional and exercise counseling.
The program employs
four certified diabetes educators (CDE), a perinatal nutritionist with
extensive experience in the management of patients with diabetes, and
highly trained support staff. Three of the four CDEs are also perinatal
RNs.
Services include:
- Preconception
counseling and management for women with diabetes who contemplate
pregnancy and want a healthy perinatal outcome
- Group educational
sessions (usually limited to four patients at a time) as well as
individual teaching offered to women diagnosed with gestational
diabetes
- Nutritional
counseling by a professional perinatal dietitian targeting the special
needs of women with diabetes
- Exercise counseling
for the pregnant woman with diabetes
- Comprehensive
diabetes education provided by certified diabetes’ educators who are
also perinatal nurses. Educational materials include information on
the risks to fetus and mother, self-blood glucose monitoring methods,
management of hypoglycemia, self-injection and insulin administration
techniques, initiation and management of insulin pump therapy
- Access to
sophisticated technology for prenatal diagnosis and antepartum fetal
management. These include:
- genetic
counseling
- fetal ultrasounds
(to assess fetal development and growth)
- fetal
echocardiograms (to assess the fetal heart)
- antepartum fetal
heart rate testing (to assess fetal heart rate and well-being
antepartum)
- Around-the-clock
clinical support by perinatal RNs who are also Certified Diabetes
Educator (CDE); a hotline for patient access to CDE support is
available 24 hours/day
- Careful monitoring
of pre-gestational diabetes during the postpartum period until the
patient returns to, or is referred to, an endocrinologist or primary
care physician
- Active database of
patients with diabetes managed during pregnancy; perinatal outcome
data has been collected for more than four years
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