Supporting Experiential Learning in People with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Managing Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is a significant challenge for pregnant individuals. Constant self-monitoring, emotional burden, and the short and long-term implications of GDM make the overall pregnancy experience challenging for these individuals, requiring action, learning, and lifestyle adjustment to manage the pregnancy properly. Prior literature on GDM mostly focuses on the medical and health management of the condition. However, pregnant individuals with GDM often must actively learn and adapt lifestyle strategies quickly without much support. Through semi-structured interviews with 13 pregnant individuals diagnosed with GDM, we investigate how these individuals experience, explore, learn, and reflect on ways to live with and manage GDM. Using Kolb’s Learning Theory to analyze and structure our findings, we built on pregnant individuals’ concrete lived experiences and uncovered the challenges as they navigate the GDM journey, managing their changing relationship with food and supporting emotional well-being while living with an often stigmatized condition in an at-risk pregnancy. Our study contributes to the discussion on the design opportunities to facilitate experiential learning of pregnant individuals’ journey.