Art by @laurenjturnerfineart
A healthy pregnancy is an almost universal desire, but with diabetes, it can seem nearly impossible. The experience of pregnancy goes from feeling miraculous and beautiful to chasing a target blood sugar and facing a risk label.
Yes, blood glucose management is important.
Yes, safety is number one.
No one size fits all to reach that important place.
But isn’t it ok to want more than just safety? What about feeling great, powerful, beautiful, glowing? What about having others who have been there. Can people with diabetes have that too?
I’m here to tell you the answer is yes! Yes, you can have those things, and it starts with a mindset about what is normal. So much about you is normal! In fact, you can use your diabetes as a roadmap to a higher level of health.
In my work with people with diabetes, I’ve heard time and time again, “I’ve never felt better in my life!”
How can that be? Feeling great in a high-risk pregnancy is something we are told is impossible by a medicalized world. But diabetes is a lifestyle guide. It leads us to our healthiest place if we know the clues to look for.
With decades of experience with thousands of people and millions of blood sugars, I can guide you to find your clues too. Explore my programs below.
My Journey Lead to My Passion
At age 3, while most toddlers learned to brush their teeth and sing ABCs, I learned about insulin and carb counting. Yet despite the fortune of health for decades, I often felt labeled and misunderstood, especially during my “high-risk” pregnancies. No one had been through it, and no one knew what to expect.
As a nurse-midwife, perinatal diabetes educator, and health coach, I’ve attended more than1300 births, and worked with many thousands of people in pregnancy. Having assisted with such a wide variety of birth experiences over the years, I thought I’d be prepared for my own pregnancy with Type 1 diabetes…
Instead, I felt overwhelmed and in the dark most of the time. Driven by my personal tenacity, medical knowledge, and connections to wise birth and diabetes professionals across the country, I found my own way to and through birth.
I felt utter relief holding our miracle baby. How could I have created this person and pushed her out, a whole beautiful, miraculous human? What a shocking and refreshingly universal feeling that was!
Yet, I did it all (and so much more) with nonfunctional pancreatic beta cells! I looked back on my pregnant self, sad with that lack of support and suddenly realized…
I was the person who needed to change this for others.
I left midwifery to submerge myself in clinical diabetes work. Later, I put my obstetric and endocrine experience together, building a perinatal diabetes practice. Through this practice, I am now able to use my experience and expertise in caring for people with diabetes from preconception to postpartum.
I am a fierce diabetes advocate for people with diabetes to be part of shared decision-making and experience pregnancy and birth on their own terms. My passion is helping pregnant people with diabetes feel supported and find ways to flourish while preparing for pregnancy, birth, and beyond.
Pregnancy with diabetes requires special preparation and brings new challenges, even for people who are already experts in their own diabetes. And people who learn they have diabetes during pregnancy are thrown into a steep and urgent learning curve as they face a new medical diagnosis in the midst of pregnancy.
I understand that questions and needs often go beyond endocrine and obstetric office care. As additional support, I provide personalized education and coaching for people with diabetes in pregnancy.
I truly believe that planning for pregnancy with diabetes can prepare us for lifetimes of health. It’s an incredible opportunity to flourish and I am here to show you how.
The Diabetes Midwife
Jessica Lynn, CNM, CDCES
Perinatal Diabetes Specialist
Jessica Lynn is a certified nurse-midwife, certified diabetes care and education specialist, and health coach in New York City with a passion for supporting people with diabetes throughout their pregnancy journeys. Uniquely qualified for this work, She’s lived with Type 1 diabetes since childhood, has had 2 children of her own, and has attended the births of more than 1,300 babies in her career.
Devoted to helping people with diabetes have healthy pregnancies and births on their own terms, Jessica feels that her greatest privilege and passion in her career is caring for people from preconception through parenthood. As additional support, she provides personalized education and coaching for people preparing for diabetes in pregnancy.
EDUCATION
Jessica has a BA in gender studies and biology from the University of California as well as a BSN and MSN in nurse-midwifery from Columbia University. Her education provided a springboard for work in women’s health. Throughout her 20 year career at institutions such as NYU, the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center, and in public hospitals from Brooklyn to Jamaica to Guatemala, she’s worked with thousands of people with diabetes in pregnancy.
ACCOLADES
Featured in Columbia Nursing magazine, Diabetes Voice, and the Insider, Jessica is a leader in the field of perinatal diabetes. She lectures to clinical audiences across the country and has written and published articles on preconception with Type 1 diabetes. Jessica provides professional education in both obstetrics and endocrinology at Columbia University, New York University, and NYC Health and Hospitals.
Jessica is honored to be named “Brooklyn Health Hero” by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
A firm believer in the benefits of remote access to health care, Jessica is also involved as a professional advisor in a telemedicine company and pioneered a video visit program in her current practice.
PERSONAL
Married to an inspiring artist and writer with Type 1 diabetes, Jessica and their children live in Brooklyn where they walk the pavement and the parks, swim, and frequent the farmers’ markets.