Diabetes Care Gave Her a Healthy Baby

A healthy beginning— During her pregnancy, Kimberly Guerriere of Bangor, Pa., was closely monitored to ensure her gestational diabetes caused by polycystic ovary syndrome didn’t harm her baby. Today Julia, age 1, is a happy and healthy little girl.

Five years ago in Chicago, Kimberly Guerriere (now of Bangor, Pa.) thought her appendix had ruptured. Instead she found out it was a ruptured ovarian cyst caused by polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a condition where high levels of male hormones interfere with normal ovulation and metabolism. Guerriere didn’t have the typical symptoms of PCOS (struggle with infertility, acne, excess weight gain or hair growth), and also didn’t learn from her Illinois doctors that she was at a much higher risk of developing diabetes later in life or during pregnancy.

Several years later when she and her husband, Rob, found out they were expecting, they didn’t know how complicated Kimberly’s pregnancy would be. Just eight weeks into her pregnancy, routine tests at Lehigh Valley Health Network revealed she had gestational diabetes, a condition that usually occurs during the second trimester after the baby’s body is formed. “Because my condition developed so early, my baby was at risk for so many birth defects,” she says. But Lehigh Valley Health Network doctors assured her that with good diabetes control, her chances of having a healthy baby were excellent.

Maternal fetal medicine specialists (physicians who specialize in complicated pregnancies) and her endocrinologist closely monitored her pregnancy. She also received dietary counseling from the Helwig Health and Diabetes Center. “I kept my diabetes under control so my baby could develop normally,” she says. The end result? Her healthy baby girl, Julia, was born on Sept. 7, 2006.

“Thanks to the great care I got at Lehigh Valley Health Network, everything turned out OK,” says Kimberly, who now has pre-diabetes and sees endocrinologist Marc Vengrove, D.O., every three months. “Julia is doing well, and I’m managing my condition.”

ARTICLE TOOLS: