Helping aboriginal women avert diabetes

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By Heather Travis
Thursday, June 4, 2009
It was once common practice to tell pregnant mothers to put their feet up and eat for two.



Michelle Mottola, Director of the R. Samuel McLauglin Foundation – Exercise and Pregnancy Laboratory, centre, is helping to promote the importance of a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy to prevent gestational diabetes. This summer, she will take the Ribbon of Life program to local communities with the help of Western students Erin Kelly, of Walpole Island First Nation, left, and Lindsay Doxtator, of Oneida Nation of the Thames.

 

But University of Western Ontario associate professor Michelle Mottola believes these old wives’ tales can harm an unborn child and she’s committed to changing such myths.
 
Mottola, director of the R. Samuel McLauglin Foundation – Exercise and Pregnancy Laboratory in the School of Kinesiology, says decisions about nutrition and physical exercise made by a pregnant mother leave a “fetal imprint” on her unborn child.
 
“Healthy lifestyle during pregnancy is extremely important and has not been stressed enough,” she says.
 
As part of her research, Mottola is working with local Aboriginal communities to turn back the tide for those at high risk for gestational diabetes during pregnancy.
 
She has partnered with the Southern Ontario Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative (SOADI), which has developed the Ribbon of Life program to support diabetes awareness, as well as the Oneida Health Centre and the Aboriginal Brotherhood (Bath Institution), with support from CIHR Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health, to include gestational diabetes as part of the awareness campaign.
 
This partnership fits into Mottola’s ongoing research into the way physical activity – even as little as 20 minutes a day of walking – can help a patient control blood sugar levels.
 
Aboriginal peoples are three times more likely to develop diabetes than the general population. Similarly, aboriginal women are at higher risk for developing gestational diabetes.
 
To address these staggering statistics, Mottola is working with members of the Oneida Nation of the Thames and Kettle & Stony Point First Nation to develop a walking program and talking circles for pregnant and post-partum women. The program is designed to address both women diagnosed with gestational diabetes, as well as to prevent those at high risk from developing the disease.
 
“A mother is the baby’s first environment. If she does not live a healthy lifestyle, she puts that child at risk for a chronic disease,” says Mottola, adding women with gestational diabetes during pregnancy increase the child’s risk of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
 
“I personally believe with the obesity and diabetes epidemic, the only way to reduce it is to start early with pregnancy and the first year of life. If you wait until the first year of school, it is too late.”
 
The key to a successful program is to partner with health care professionals and members within the Aboriginal communities, she says. The program must be adopted as a lifestyle and incorporate all members of the family and the community at large.
 
If the program is successful within local communities, Mottola hopes to expand it so any First Nation communities can incorporate it.
 
Two First Nation Western students are working in Mottola’s laboratory throughout the summer to help bring the program to local aboriginal communities.
 
Third-year science student Erin Kelly wants to raise awareness about the risks of gestational diabetes in her own community of Walpole Island First Nation.
 
“It has a big impact on the community and a lot of people are afflicted,” she says. “Prevention is the only way. There is no cure. The only way to prevent it is to educate.”
 
Lindsay Doxtator, fourth-year health sciences student and member of the Oneida Nation of the Thames, says many of her family members have diabetes.
 
“I would like to see our communities getting healthier, especially First Nations communities,” she says. But the program is not restricted to Aboriginal women. Mottola is also working with non-aboriginal women at higher risk due to their ethnicity or being overweight. 
 
Want to participate?
Anyone interested in participating in a research study can contact Dr. Michelle Mottola at 519-661-2111 ext. 88366 or e-mail mmottola@uwo.ca.

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