Diabetes and Women’s Health

In partnership with Hoag Women's Health Services and Hoag Heart and Vascular Institute, the Allen Diabetes Center provides services for women with diabetes throughout their lives. Special diabetes-related health concerns of adolescents, women who are planning pregnancies, pregnant women and women in later life are all addressed by the services in this program.

Sweet Success

Sweet Success is a state-affiliated program for women who have diabetes while they are pregnant. Some women, who have never had diabetes before, become diabetic during pregnancy, a condition called gestational diabetes mellitus, or GDM. Other women may already have type 1 or type 2 diabetes and become pregnant. The Sweet Success program is for all of these women. Careful management of diabetes during pregnancy is essential to ensure a safe pregnancy and a healthy baby.

Certified Diabetes Educators at the Allen Diabetes Center provide classes and information for pregnant and breast feeding women with diabetes to provide detailed meal planning and consultation related to medications as well as insulin instruction and pump training if needed.

Ueberroth Program for Women and Diabetes

The Ueberroth Program for Women and Diabetes at the Allen Diabetes Center dramatically enhances the continuity of care available to women in the community. Funded through a generous grant from the Peter and Ginny Ueberroth Foundation, this program will help the Allen Diabetes Center reach farther into the community to ensure that all women, regardless of their financial circumstances, have access to world-class diabetes care before, during and after pregnancy.

Gestational diabetes (GDM), or diabetes that first develops during pregnancy, may develop in up to 7% of the population. Though all ethnic groups experience gestational diabetes, Hispanic, Asian and African American women are at particular risk.

The Ueberroth Program allows the Allen Diabetes Center to expand its award winning Sweet Success program so that it benefits many more mothers throughout Orange County, including women who speak Spanish only.