New technology hope for diabetic mothers

Last week saw the world’s first ever naturally birth by a women who had used an artificial pancreas device system (APDS) during her pregnancy, when Catriona Finlayson-Wilkins gave birth to son Euan on Tuesday at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.  The APDS is a small portable device which was worn throughout the pregnancy to automatically monitor the mother’s blood glucose levels and administer insulin as required.  The device has been developed by researchers in Cambridge and it is hoped will be used to help many more women successfully control their diabetes during pregnancy.

Dr Helen Murphy, principal investigator of the study said,  “For women with Type 1 diabetes, self-management is particularly challenging during pregnancy due to physiological and hormonal changes.  These high blood glucose levels increase the risk of congenital malformation, stillbirth, neonatal death, preterm delivery, macrosomia [oversized babies] and neonatal admission. So to discover an artificial pancreas can help maintain near-normal glucose levels in these women is very promising”.

For more information see the BBC articles here and here