14 Healthcare Innovations Innovative healthcare & alternative remedies
Promotional Content • Saturday 28th March 2020
Predictive tech supporting pregnant women with diabetes
When Olivia describes her Dexcom G6 diabetes management device as a ‘life-saver’, she isn’t exaggerating. Holding her four-month-old baby boy Barnaby close, Olivia is quick to praise the Dexcom G6 Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) system that helped her bring him safely into the world despite her Type 1 diabetes (T1D).
T
1D is when a person’s pancreas doesn’t produce insulin, making it impossible for them
to regulate their glucose levels. When they eat, their glucose levels go high (hyperglycaemia) and when they do exercise, their glucose levels can go low (hypoglycaemia). Both extremes pose both short- and long-term risks. Prior to having Barnaby, Olivia
fell pregnant with her HbA1c (her average glucose level) nine points higher than NICE-recommended targets for pregnancy.1 As her first pregnancy progressed
and the number of potentially harmful hyperglycaemic events increased — as they often do in the second and third trimesters — she didn’t always catch them. “Navigating pregnancy with type
one diabetes was like having a second full-time job,” she says. Tragically, at 8 weeks, she joined the
awful statistic of 8% of T1D mums- to-be who experience pregnancy loss.2 When she fell pregnant for the second time, with Barnaby, Olivia was under- standably delighted and nervous in equal measure, and her diabetes clinic was quick to put her on Dexcom G6 CGM before she entered her second trimester. As a result, her HbA1c dropped from 52 to 33 — and remained there throughout her pregnancy.
Olivia and her partner Russell
welcomed Barnaby to the world last September, weighing 6lb 5oz. “Dexcom was the biggest life-saver,”
says the proud new mum about her pregnancy journey. CGM involves wearing a sensor
under the skin that takes a reading of glucose levels, where they’re heading and how fast they’re getting there every five minutes (up to 288 read- ings a day) — without the need for a single fingerstick or scan.* Te data is sent to their smartphone or watch, so users can check them at a glance, but if they’re out of the ranges they’ve set, they’ll be alerted.** Real-time glucose information is
absolutely essential for someone with T1D to inform treatment decisions, in order to limit glycaemic variability and its associated harmful outcomes for pregnancy. Dexcom G6 CGM offers a predictive
alert giving users up to a 20-minute warning ahead of a severe hypo, so they can treat and avoid it alto- gether. It also offers a share function, enabling users to share their data with up to five loved ones, widening the safety net at this crucial time. T1D requires constant monitoring
and treatment, never more so than during pregnancy when a woman’s body is ever-changing, and the
* IF YOUR GLUCOSE ALERTS AND READINGS FROM THE G6 DON’T MATCH SYMPTOMS OR EXPECTATIONS, USE A BLOOD GLUCOSE METER TO MAKE DIABETES TREATMENT DECISIONS. **A SMART WATCH REQUIRES A COMPATIBLE SMARTPHONE.
PHOTOGRAPH: DAYTON BOX
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