A Ballarat University study has found some rural doctors are refusing treatment to pregnant women with type one diabetes. Doctors are reportedly worried that rural medical services would be insufficient to deal with diabetic complications during pregnancy.
The seven women interviewed as part of the national study say there's a lack of information on managing blood glucose levels during pregnancy.
They say they rely on websites for information.
Ballarat University lecturer, Associate Professor Rosemary King, says the woman are deflated by the attitudes of some health professionals.
"Being told that they might miscarry or the baby might die or they might have abnormalities... particularly when you're pregnant or you're wanting to be pregnant you're pretty vulnerable to those sorts of messages," she said.
"[The women] really thought that people were being not very helpful and more judgemental and negative than constructive," Associate Professor King said.
She says the results are not surprising given the shortage of specialists in country areas.
"We probably need to be thinking about how to have accessible information available both for professionals and for the women... how do we go about sort of finding out what it is that people want to know, how do we make the information available?" she said. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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