You and Your Child’s Diabetes Healthcare Team

When your child has diabetes, it can be overwhelming and challenging. However, there is a healthcare team that can help you and your family cope up with learning more about the disease and helping your child manage diabetes.

Your child’s diabetes treatment needs the expertise of a healthcare team – composed of doctors, health care providers, certified educators, health professionals and dietitians. A team composed of these experts consider your child’s developmental needs, growth, preference, lifestyle and skills in the treatment.

What the healthcare team does

It is noteworthy that the captain of the healthcare team is you and your child. Many cases shall the functions of each team member overlap, and therefore you should be comfortable in communicating with any of them.

Your child’s healthcare team educates you and your family about diabetes. They help in creating your child’s treatment or diabetes management plan, adjusts insulin or other medications and make recommendations to physical activity to help regulate blood sugar levels.

Doctors

Doctors, who are one of the topmost member of your child’s diabetes team, usually are pediatric endocrinologist who are specialists in treating children who have diseases in the endocrine system like growth disorders and diabetes. Family practitioners, pediatricians and other medical doctors can also treat diabetic kids and help manage their healthcare needs.

Doctors would ask questions on your child’s feeling and shall perform examinations. You need to cooperate by giving detailed answers as well. They shall monitor your child’s medical conditions, diabetes complications, can adjust insulin needs, write medications or prescriptions and can refer other specialists. They can also recommend you and the other team members of a comprehensie diabetes management plan.

Certified Diabetes Educators (CDEs)

CDEs in your child’s diabetes healthcare team are doctors, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists or social workers who have special training to teach parents and kids to help them manage diabetes. They can teach how to do insulin injections, how to treat high and low blood sugar levels, adjust medications, do physical activities, monitor sugar levels and review diabetes goals with you and your kid.

Dietitians

Dietitians are registered experts in meal and nutrition planning who know food composition and its effects on the body and blood sugar. As your child grows, dietitians can make adjustments and recommendations on his food intake. Expect the dietitian to make plans on diet based on special events, activities, sports and holidays; provide recipe and snack ideas. As part of the child’s diabetes healthcare team, dietitians teach your child how to choose food, carbohydrate counting and meal planning techniques.

Mental Health Professionals

A mental health professional, is usually a psychologist, social worker, counselor or psychiatrist. They can asses problems at home, school or work and how the disease affect the child’s surroundings. Furthermore, they can come up with strategies to improve your child’s diabetes management.

Social workers can also recommend needed diabetes supplies and equipments to help families deal with financial issues and insurances. Psychiatrists and psychologists can utilize behaviour modification techniques to help diabetic kids overcom e their difficulties in emotionally dealing with the disease such as sadness or anger, and taking responsibility of caring and administering their disease.

The diabetes healthcare team are there to be of great help. It is of vital importance that you cooperate with each member to make your child’s diabetes more manageable.