Renu­ka Singh

At 12.01 am Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal reg­is­tered the coun­try’s first Christ­mas Day birth. A lit­tle girl, weigh­ing just 6.3 lbs was born to 23-year-old Or­nel­la Far­rell. The hap­py moth­er was thrilled by the news that she was the first to give birth on the spe­cial day.

Less than an hour lat­er, the hos­pi­tal reg­is­tered the sec­ond birth for the day, this time a ba­by boy born to Saman­tha Periera and weigh­ing 7.07 lbs.

At Mt Hope Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, 19-year-old Zaniyah Au­gus­tus gave birth to her first ba­by as well.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh vis­it­ed all three ba­bies yes­ter­day, de­liv­er­ing ham­pers to the nurs­es and ba­by sup­plies to the new par­ents.

Deyals­ingh took time from the vis­its to an­nounce plans to launch a na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion­al dri­ve to in­form moth­ers-to-be about the dan­gers of ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes. The plan is ex­pect­ed to be rolled out next month.

“Right now it is go­ing through the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board ap­proval. it was sup­posed to have been signed off by now,” Deyals­ingh said.

“The plan is be­ing launched un­der the um­brel­la of the Na­tion­al Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases ini­tia­tive to tack­le every­thing in di­a­betes.”

Ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes is a con­di­tion that de­vel­ops dur­ing preg­nan­cy. Like oth­er types of di­a­betes, ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes af­fects the body’s abil­i­ty to process glu­cose. Ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes has been known to cause high blood sug­ar that can af­fect both the moth­er and the ba­by in the womb and af­ter birth.

“What we want to do is have a life course ap­proach to di­a­betes, tack­le it from in­cep­tion so the moth­er who is giv­ing birth,” the min­is­ter said.

“When you have a moth­er who is di­a­bet­ic and the ba­by grows in that en­vi­ron­ment, the ba­by gen­er­al­ly tends to be over­weight. That gives you prob­lems and com­pli­ca­tions in de­liv­ery,” he said.

“It is one of the caus­es of ma­ter­nal deaths, it is one of the caus­es of neona­tal deaths.”

Deyals­ingh said the na­tion­al pro­gramme would help “trap” these moth­ers ear­ly on in the preg­nan­cy and pre­vent a wors­en­ing of the sit­u­a­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, one in every five preg­nant women de­vel­oped ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes. He said the ini­tia­tive, while not un­der the um­brel­la of a na­tion­al plan, would still be rolled out through­out the na­tion.

He said the ba­bies born un­der those con­di­tions weighed up­wards of nine pounds.

“Ba­bies then tend to de­vel­op Type I di­a­betes as chil­dren and then they are di­a­bet­ic for life,” he said.

Deyals­ingh said ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion would save lives and im­prove the stan­dard of liv­ing for many prone to the dis­ease.