Lynne Chimon, RD, CDE, CDN, Diabetes Nutritionist at Winthrop's Diabetes Education Center (left) and Virginia Peragallo-Dittko, APRN, BC-ADM, MA, CDE, Director of Winthrop's Diabetes Education Center at a LIFWG breakfast where the grant was announced. In a continued show of support for Winthrop-University Hospital's nationally renowned Diabetes Education Center, the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls (LIFWG) recently awarded the Center a second grant for the Moms Vested in Prevention program, a unique educational program that provides telephone-based nutritional counseling to women with recent gestational diabetes - a form of diabetes that some women develop during pregnancy.

Gestational diabetes is one of the most common complications of pregnancy, affecting four to eight percent of all pregnant women. About 135,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with gestational diabetes each year. In New York, the incidence has increased by 50 percent over the past 10 years. Even though the disease usually resolves at the conclusion of the pregnancy, women who have had gestational diabetes have a 45 to 65 percent chance of developing type 2 diabetes later in life. Education, lifestyle modification and medical monitoring can help reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes in post-partum women.

The $4,500 grant from the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls will enable Winthrop's Diabetes Education Center to continue to deliver its highly successful educational program to women across Long Island, as well as support the Center's efforts to provide targeted education to the medical community about the importance of post partum blood glucose monitoring for the surveillance and prevention of diabetes.

"Winthrop's Moms Vested in Prevention program is the only one of its kind. Telephone-based counseling removes a new mom's usual barriers to self-care such as child care concerns and lack of transportation," said Virginia Peragallo-Dittko, RN, Director of Winthrop's Diabetes Education Center. "We are most grateful to the forward-thinking Long Island Fund for Women and Girls for their support of this program."

In 2007, the LIFWG awarded Winthrop's Diabetes Education Center with its first grant of $5,000 for the development of the Moms Vested in Prevention program and specialized training for the Center's team of Certified Diabetes Educators.

The Moms Vested in Prevention program provides nutritional counseling to women and is tailored to address foods relevant to each patient's cultural background. Non-English-speaking patients can be counseled through the use of Winthrop's live, telephone-based CyraCom language translation service, which provides medical interpreters for 150 languages and is designed to allow continuous communication between two people through an interpreter.

For decades, the Diabetes Education Center at Winthrop has been a leader in the field of diabetes education. The first education program in New York State to be accredited and recognized by the American Diabetes Association, Winthrop's Diabetes Education Center serves over 2,100 patients annually through its comprehensive educational programming and support services.

The Long Island Fund for Women and Girls was established in 1991 to fund programs that improve the lives of women and girls, highlight and address women's issues, and develop women's philanthropy.

For more information about the Moms Vested in Prevention program, call Winthrop's Diabetes Education Center at (516) 663-2350.