Gestational Diabetes & Insulin Resistance Online Course(s) & Continuing Education
Access the latest clinical skills and research for Gestational Diabetes & Insulin Resistance for PREGNANCY, LABOUR & CHILDBIRTH professional training. These Gestational Diabetes & Insulin Resistance online courses provide practice-changing skills and valuable perspectives from leading global experts. This Gestational Diabetes & Insulin Resistance education has been accredited for a variety of CEUs / CERPs and can be accessed on-demand, at your own pace.
Primers for Nutritional Counseling in Pregnancy: Lessons from Gestational Diabetes
Dr. Teri Hernandez is the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship in the College of Nursing and an Associate Professor of Medicine and Nursing at the University of Colorado. Over 19 years at CU, she has developed a program of research exemplified by the execution of carefully controlled clinical studies focused on nutrition, metabolic health, and early life exposures. The goal of these studies is to illuminate ways to improve the lives of women, infants and their families using a multidisciplinary team science approach. Teri is a cardiac nurse by training. She has a dedicated commitment to understanding insulin resistance as both an adaptation and as pathology. Her research focuses on diabetes/obesity, pregnancy, and fetal growth, with an emphasis on how nutrition and metabolism influence these conditions. She and her research team (Infant GOLD, Investigations in the Gestational Origins of Lifelong Development) have a research program focused on in-utero programming influences and through this platform, she is committed to training high-caliber clinical investigators. Dr. Hernandez is an educator in the graduate school at CU, serves as Director for the Colorado Clinical and Translational Research Institute Early Life Exposures Research program, and is a Pediatric Nurse Scientist at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Nutrition has a powerful and lasting influence on maternal and fetal outcomes in pregnancy. In gestational diabetes (GDM), nutrition therapy remains the primary approach to treatment and we now understand that lessons from nutrition in GDM may be applied to all pregnancies. Recent data underscore metabolic similarities in patterns of glycemia and lipemia between diet-controlled GDM and maternal obesity without GDM. This highlights an opportunity to more thoughtfully target women with obesity outside of GDM, where macrosomia rates are high, for treatment with nutrition. The importance of good nutrition for all pregnant women was recently highlighted by data demonstrating strong associations between fasting and postprandial triglycerides and neonatal adiposity outside of GDM, further supporting a role for targeting these nutrition sensitive indicators. Currently, evidence does not support one particular nutritional approach to treatment of GDM. The quality of the available evidence is poor due to high heterogeneity. However, a recent meta-analysis across 18 RCTs and 8 diet patterns demonstrated that any modification which improves from intake at GDM diagnosis is effective in reducing fasting and postprandial glucose, and lowering infant birthweight. The goal is balanced, affordable and culturally acceptable nutrition for women with GDM, extending to all pregnancies.
