Balancing Pregnancy with Pre-Existing Diabetes: Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby is a comprehensive guide for women with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Written by Cheryl Alkon, a mother who has lived with type 1 diabetes for more than 30 years, this book is a solid, well-researched resource that provides a reality check about the potential risks that diabetes imposes on pregnancy, without the scare tactics. The book is infused with insights from than 50 women with diabetes who have become pregnant, and their remarks, along with Alkon’s personal experience, humanize the book, while delivering useful information and tips for moms-to-be with diabetes.

And that’s quite a few women.  An estimated 1.85 million American women ages 18 to 44 have diabetes. Type 1 diabetes, the-very-much-insulin-dependent, ain’t-going-away-with-weight-loss-or-after-the-kid-is-born diabetes, as Alkon characterizes it, is far less common than type 2 diabetes, which may be controllable with diet and exercise alone, but don’t let that fool you. Type 2 diabetes threatens your baby’s growth and development and should be taken seriously.  Type 2 diabetes is on the rise among women of childbearing age largely because many women are overweight, and excess body fat can trigger diabetes in women that have the gene for it.

Got diabetes? Get this book. And visit Alkon’s entertaining and informative blog.