Prevention of Obesity and Diabetes in Childbearing Women

Abstract

Obesity and diabetes have become pandemic in the United States, with more than one-third of the US population obese and 8.3% of the population affected by diabetes. Efforts to prevent type 2 diabetes focus primarily on healthy eating and physical activity. In particular, women from at-risk racial and ethnic groups and those who have experienced gestational diabetes are at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Achieving a healthy weight prior to conception, staying within weight gain guidelines during pregnancy, and losing accumulated pregnancy weight postpartum are key prevention factors. Maintaining a healthy weight in the long-term is a challenge. Behavioral psychology and coaching techniques are presented in this article that can be useful in sustaining behaviors that promote a healthy weight.

Physical Activity Programs during Pregnancy Are Effective for the Control of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

“…However, this does not mean that pharmacological treatment, such as insulin, is not necessary when adequate metabolic control is not achieved with the above indications [9,10]. Nurses and midwives, among other professionals, are in charge of monitoring a pregnancy and carrying out the diagnostic tests for GDM-indications for physical activity-and are in the closest contact with pregnant women [11].…”

“…It also discusses the controversy of physical activity in pregnancy in a recent meta-analysis which indicates that exercise can only perform a preventive approach in GDM [16]. The close relationship between the nursing community and midwives has great potential to influence pregnant women and to profoundly improve their health to face the battle against excess weight in pregnancy and GDM [11]. In addition, professionals can reach an agreement on the safest and most effective recommendations, since currently there is still controversy about the screening protocols or diagnostic criteria of GDM and the best or most successful treatment for this pathology [27].…”

Effects of a metabolic syndrome self‐management programme for women with pre‐diabetes

“…Unrecognised and untreated metabolic syndrome can lead to many serious health problems, including type‐2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, chronic kidney disease, end‐stage renal failure and related complications . These consequences can be prevented by adopting a healthy lifestyle, paying particular attention to diet, exercise and body‐weight reduction . However, more than 60% of women with metabolic syndrome cannot achieve good glycaemic and lipid control .…”

A Practice‐Based Research Database to Study Perinatal Nurse Home Visiting to Pregnant Women With Diabetes

“…Reaching glycemic control in pregnancy, because of its dynamic, ever‐changing physiological and psychosocial states, can be particularly difficult (Klein, Charach, & Sheiner, ). Clinical practice approaches are taxed as the epidemiology of insulin resistance during pregnancy grows due to a complex interplay between obesity, environmental exposures of stress, and poverty (Geronimus et al., ; Trout, Ellis, & Bratschie, ). Maternal hyperglycemia affects fetal programming for diabetes and obesity.…”