Tina Amanda
Pregnant women in the state have been cautioned to check their sugar intake as excess of it in the blood stream during pregnancy, could lead to death.
Obstetrician Gynecologist at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Dr. Rosemary Ogu, who stated this during a one-day workshop on strategic planning for community mobilization for gestational diabetes prevention and care, organized by Medical Women Association in Port Harcourt, said any sugar level in pregnancy above 5.1 minimus is abnormal.
According to her, diabetes is very difficult to manage, adding that proper lifestyle and good nutrition should be maintained to avoid it.
“The issue of Gestational diabetes in pregnancy is something that can be handled to prevent the woman having a bad outcome like the baby dieing inside the womb, having a baby with malformation in the womb, a woman having complications with womb infections or the woman also dying from the process.
“We should eat more of natural foods, foods gotten from the farm, things that have been grown, our cassava, esam, fish, crayfish, vegetables, garden eggs, instead of eating things that where processed and packaged. we are talking about lifestyle modification, healthy diet, exercising, pregnant women can dance to our natural music just to exercise”
She urged the public to join Medical Women in diabetes awareness campaign to save women and children from the dangers of diabetes.
“What we are doing is to mobilize social mobilizers, we have community leaders, women leaders, we are planning with them to mobilize women in 42 communities in Rivers State.
” MWAN wants to screen 5,000 women for diabetes this coming month of May, 2019. We have screened lot of women but we want to do more as medical women and as doctors, to give back to the society, so awareness is the key which everyone of us is involved in”
Dr Ogu stressed that women should be screened for gestational diabetes during pregnancy and after child delivery, including the new born child, adding that the results from the screen can tell a woman who can have diabetes in future, a woman who may not survive the pregnancy or whose baby may die in the womb.
