Feeding your baby when you have diabetes

At Darent Valley Hospital we offer a service for all mothers with diabetes who would like to breast feed their newborn babies, and commence from 36 weeks the expressing of colostrum and storage in order to feed baby at birth with pre expressed breast milk. The importance of harvesting colostrum in the ante natal period for high risk mothers has been highlighted in order to reduce the incidence of neonatal hypoglycaemia (Low blood sugars), avoiding the supplementation of breast fed babies with formula. This has numerous additional health benefits, inclusive of reduced risk of type 2 diabetes in mother and child. If you would like to discuss the possibility of harvesting of colostrum further please contact the infant feeding advisor or specialist diabetic midwife.