Specialist diabetes clinics herald the arrival of six bouncing babies at The Royal Oldham Hospital

Linda Adams, lead nurse diabetes; Lucy Todd, Rebecca Webster and Laura Travis with their babies and Jane Bennion, diabetes specialist nurse at The Royal Oldham Hospital

Six ladies from the Oldham area have thanked the staff in the joint diabetes antenatal clinic at The Royal Oldham Hospital for their expert care in their antenatal period.

All the ladies have type one diabetes which means that there are increased risks associated with pregnancy and so specialist input was required throughout their pregnancy.

Diabetes is a condition in which the amount of sugar (glucose) in the blood is too high. Glucose comes from the digestion of starchy foods, such as bread and rice. Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, helps the body to use glucose for energy.

There are two main types of diabetes:

• Type one DM is when the pancreas produces no insulin and people require insulin injections for life. Approximately 10-15 % of people with diabetes will have type one diabetes.
• Type two DM is more common and occurs when the pancreas does not make sufficient amounts of insulin or the insulin is not effective. It can be managed with diet and lifestyle, and or medications or insulin.

Women with diabetes have a higher increased risk of certain complications in early pregnancy if their blood glucose levels are elevated; there is an increased risk of miscarriage and an increased risk of the baby having a congenital abnormality.

As pregnancy progress if the blood glucose levels are not tightly managed there is an increased risk of having a larger baby which can lead to a difficult birth, there is also an increased risk of early delivery and induction of labour. 

Rebecca Webster said: “I have been type one diabetic for 14 years. When I found out that I was carrying my son I informed my diabetic team at The Royal Oldham Hospital and they and the maternity staff were amazing. I was seen by my dietician, the midwives and the diabetic specialist nurses almost every single week.

“The midwives that took care of me and my son were incredible and did everything they could for us. They went completely out of their way to help in any way that they could. Having my son was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I would like to publicly thank the professionals at The Royal Oldham Hospital for their help and support.”

Linda Adams, lead nurse diabetes at The Royal Oldham Hospital, said: “Diabetes is a lifelong condition and if you already have type one or type two your diabetes treatment is likely to need adjusting during your pregnancy, depending on your needs.

“We already facilitate joint obstetric and diabetes clinics for pregnant ladies and because the incidence of type one diabetes is not as prevalent as the other types of diabetes; we only tend to see a couple of ladies with type one diabetes at any one time in the specialist antenatal clinic. It was therefore quite unusual when six ladies with type one diabetes all needed our expertise and care at the same time.”

In order to manage their diabetes more effectively and intensely each of these ladies’ diabetes was managed with specialist insulin pump therapy.

Extra diabetes clinics were put on for the ladies to give them sufficient time to get the right support from the hospital and each lady was seen by the diabetes specialist nurses at least fortnightly throughout their whole pregnancy.

Nurse Adams added: “We wanted to give these ladies the best care possible to ensure that they had safe pregnancies and ultimately healthy babies. With the help of our colleagues in the ante natal clinic we feel that we delivered this and share the joy of the ladies following the birth of their beautiful babies.”