Giving birth without an insulin/glucose drip

Hello! I'm looking for further information / personal experiences about giving birth without being on an insulin/glucose drip. I'm 33 weeks pregnant with my first baby, DAFNE trained & well controlled. I'm eager to have the most natural birth experience possible. Thank you!

Hi
I'm new here and been DAFNEING for 2½ years. Had my babies before DAFNE (now 9 and 6 - time does fly).

Do you plan to try and go full term naturallly or will you be induced at 38 weeks? I was encouraged to go for being induced at 38 weeks as I was told after this time the placenta can stop working without warning, with obvious results. Maybe the advice is diff now? I'd be interested to hear?

Induction just didn't work for us, my stubborn son wasn't budging (he's the same now if comfortable, you can't shift him!) so I had a c.section. Which was fine, no complaints, up and about the same day, then a planned one for number two.

First time I went into hosp with a birth plan all written out and then ended up never even opeining it as the induction just wasn't working. I came to the conclusion that my son was safer out than in so went for the c.section and don't regret it. So what I'm saying in a round about way is don't get too hung up on the delivery, focus on the outcome.

The bit that did frustrate me about both deliveries was the assumption that I would have a baby with a hypo and that they insisted on bottle feeding both at birth. I wanted to BF and hated the fact that despite excellent control during pregnancy, and that I think most babies blood sugar is low on delivery, they stuck a bottle in his mouth, it felt like they were covering themselves. Second baby I tried to insist this didn't happen and they said they had never seen anyone manually express milk in the recovery room (I expressed some to add to the bottle as they still wanted to give one). If you want to breastfeed (and do its lovely!!) this is an area I would try and clarify with your health carers rather than being pushed into giving bottles.

Also make sure you take plenty of food in with you and ask NOT to be put on the diabetic menu. Second baby I was asked to go in the night before so they could control my blood sugars, went really low in the middle of the night (which I had never done before!) and all they could find for me to eat was a sandwich 2 days over its shelf life!!!

Best wishes

Val

Hi,
i can only give you my experience 14 y ago.i was induced because of risk of still birth(placenta not working anymore) at 39 weeks. did no have a drip, but I was encourage to do prick finger test during delivery. straight away after my son was born, was kept under obs.and I was asked to breast fed from start (on delivery bed)and 2 hourly prety tiring!!. all went well.i forgot, i did have normal vaginal delivery..all the best concha

Hi

I gave birth to a beautiful daughter 3 years ago. Diabetes was very well controlled during pregancy and was only induced 2 days prior to due date. She was born the following day and in the end she came so quickly that there was no time for drip etc. just checked blood immediately after birth as i felt little low however all was fine with glucose levels. Baby was fine and i breast feed in delivery unit.

Best of luck with your little bundle

Irene

Hi

I've had 3 girls, 17, 16 & 13 now.

1 - Induced at 38 weeks - used a glucose drip, pethadine, gas & air - I could hear the drip bleeping and was either hypo or high but thought there was a budgie in the room and I hate birds !! Baby born was 8lb 2oz

2 - again induced at 38 weeks, I don't remember having a drip but had gas & air and petadine baby was 9lb 2oz

3 - bit more experienced by this time - went into labour in afternoon, got kids fed, bathed and in bed and sorted out a baby sitter before coming to hospital when I couldn't stand it anymore - I was only in the labour room for 5 mins before having baby - no drips, no drugs lol and a healthy 9lb 12oz !

We do have bigger babies but the weight droped off mine in a couple of days, not so much that their weight dropped a lot, but they lost the excess blubber !! None of mine were fed at birth, they were passed to me and we moved to a ward, where i was encouraged to breast feed when they were hungry. breast feeding wasn't for me (it hurt like heck) so they were all bottle fed and fine.

Diane