My husband and I were trying for over a year when we got pregnant last year. At 12 weeks I had a miscarriage, which tunred out to be because of the diabetes I was not aware I had, I wasnt eve diagnosed until about 2 months after the MC. So here are my questions:
Is is safe/recommended to get pregnant with diabetes (Type 1, adult onset)?
For those of you who have had healthy pregnancies with diabetes, do you have the concernt that you will pass this chronic disease on to your children?
I have been type 1 for 27 years. I have two healthy children ages 21 and 19. It is safe for you to have a baby, but it's going to be a lot of work on your part. You will really have to maintain tight control and be followed by several specialists. Diabetes puts you in the high-risk category so you'll be seen by a high-risk OB as well as your endo. I think I saw my endo once a week, but it was a long time ago for me. My memory on that is cloudy now. Of course, there is always the risk of passing diabetes on to your child, but I got diabetes out of the blue. No one else in my family had it, so anyone can get it at any time.
Thank you! I have heard of people having healthy babies, but frankly, I am scared. Scared of what I do not know. Scared that I may do something wrong that will end it again. I am in Germany right now, My Endo is about 4 hours away, I hope they do not expect a visit every week. I did talk to a OBGYN here, but he said it is very dangerous and I would have to go to the hospital for a week (atleast) each trimester which I am not interested in...
if you haven't joined this group, please do
http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/ohbaby
you will find lots of good info and support there.
You need to be speaking to a high-risk OB/GYN and not a regular one. Are you near a city that would have a major hospital or a teaching hospital? That's what you are going to need. I live in a rural area so it was a long haul each week to see my endo and OB/GYN in the city. As I recall now (it's been 19 years), there were some weeks that I could not go all the way to the city so I faxed my blood sugar chart to him and then we spoke on the phone. Pregnancy REQUIRES that you keep a detailed chart/list of everything thing you eat and drink and every unit of insulin you take, what time, and what you blood sugar readings are, etc. That's the only way they have to know what you are doing from week to week. Your insulin requirements are going to be adjusted every single week as your hormone levels rise. I had to sit in the hospital for a couple of weeks at the end with both of my kids but they were for different reasons than diabetes. With my oldest, I had placenta previa and with my youngest, I had hypertension. It IS a lot of work. I suppose it can be dangerous to a doctor who doesn't know what he's doing. But, you know what?!? It was worth every crumb I had to count, every test strip, every trip to the cit that I made. I have two really wonderful daughters which I would have cheated myself out of if I had listened to a lot of people around me telling me not to try it. If you want kids, do it, but you need to have the right doctors helping you with it.
I agree, it's a lot of work, but first and foremost get an Ob/Gyn who specializes in high risk pregnancy. That makes a big difference. I didn't have an endo and my Ob/Gyn did great managaing me...would I recommend that today if I was doing it over, lol well I'd keep the same ob but add the endo, and I'd ditch the craptastic 70/30 and be on a pump. But even with all of that I had a healthy baby. 7lbs 13oz so he wasn't overly large either, and he had absolutely no blood sugar problems at birth and 17 years later no diabetes. I mean diabetes just happens sometimes, sometimes there's nothing you can do. If you want a baby, get your blood sugar in tight control, get a good endo and a high risk ob doctor.
I passed it on 50 years before I got it. My daughter got it in her teens. I didn't get it til after I retired, but the autoimmune tendency/genetics was passed on. As a parent, it was far worse dealing with her diabetes problems than later dealing with my day to day management. Had I had it and known I was passing it on, my daughter and family would have gladly killed me.
I don't know any people with diabetes in the medical field who would recommend it to their own families to pass on the tendency. And since I live in a medical family with medical practitioners throughout it, I am only expressing what one family of medical practitioners thinks, talks about at family get-togethers, and is deeply concerned about. You asked do you have the concern you will pass this on to your children? Yes, and to grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc. etc. I've done medical genealogy.
There's no reason why a T1D can't have a healthy, normal pregnancy. But it will take a lot of hard work, lots of monitoring and doctors appointments and scans. You have to be prepared to put in the slog but let me tell you it is so worth it in the end.
As for passing it on - let's put it into context. I am the only known T1D in a family overrun with T2s. Me having T1 probably makes it statistically a little more likely that my daughter might get it; however this is completely overshadowed by her chances of having T2 anyway. Looking at the genetic pool, she's also likely to have ingrown toenails, be short-sighted and go grey in her teens.
These are the most accurate statistics regarding the hereditariness of T1D from the ADA: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/genetics-of-diabetes.html.
"In general, if you are a man with type 1 diabetes, the odds of your child getting diabetes are 1 in 17. If you are a woman with type 1 diabetes and your child was born before you were 25, your child’s risk is 1 in 25; if your child was born after you turned 25, your child’s risk is 1 in 100.
Your child’s risk is doubled if you developed diabetes before age 11. If both you and your partner have type 1 diabetes, the risk is between 1 in 10 and 1 in 4.
There is an exception to these numbers. About 1 in every 7 people with type 1 diabetes has a condition called type 2 polyglandular autoimmune syndrome.
In addition to having diabetes, these people also have thyroid disease and a poorly working adrenal gland. Some also have other immune system disorders. If you have this syndrome, your child’s risk of getting the syndrome including type 1 diabetes is 1 in 2."
Thank you Lila, this made me smile and gives me hope!