For women with gestational diabetes and obesity, pregnancy is frequently their first encounter with an interdisciplinary team of health professionals, which offers a unique opportunity for prevention and treatment with major implications for the short- and long-term health of both mother and child.
Where there is known diabetes, pregnancy often leads to improved self-care, but many women revert to old habits after the birth. There is a need to address improvements in practitioner support and selfcare both pre-pregnancy and postpartum. This can be done through research into improved health technology and communication (e.g. using personal apps) at sector transitions involving the woman herself, her own doctor, the local diabetes team and the highly specialized department.
Research is already being undertaken on ways of optimizing diabetes control, diet, weight development and physical capacity during pregnancy. Ethnic minorities, the overweight, the socially disadvantaged and women with psychiatric disorders are all over-represented among women with type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes.
Research projects consequently focus on developing a more individualized intervention using methods such as ‘motivational interviewing’, which aims to limit weight gain by means of lifestyle changes during pregnancy.
SDCO is an important platform for developing tools for intervention (e.g. via social media) in collaboration with patients, hospital staff and general practice. Potential barriers in both patent and practitioners should be identified by involving psychologists and communication experts.
Collaboration
Research into pregnancy and diabetes must be based on the already-established collaboration between the interdisciplinary diabetes and pregnancy teams at the region’s four maternity centres, which constitute the seedbed for future regional research projects and the effective implementation of new research findings in this area.
Program Manager
Professor Dorte Møller Jensen
