How to Count Carbs for Pediatric Diabetic Patients

When a child has type 1 diabetes, his body doesn't produce a hormone called insulin that he needs to effectively use glucose for body functions. Insulin injections correct the deficiency. In order to keep his blood glucose level within a targeted range, the child or his caregivers must balance the food he eats with the insulin he's given. Carbohydrates, or carbs, are nutrients that break down into glucose in the body. Carb counting provides the data needed to inject the right amount of insulin.

Things You'll Need

• Insulin
• Books or software with carb counts

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Instructions

• 1

  Learn what foods contain carbs. Major sources of carbohydrates include grains like breads and pasta, fruits, vegetables, beans, root crops like potatoes, most milk products except cheese, desserts, and regular soda. Most foods that end in "ose" (e.g., sucrose, fructose and maltose) are also carbohydrates.

• 2

  Read the Nutrition Facts label. Most packaged foods specify the serving size and the total carbohydrates in the package.

• 3

  Calculate how many carbs your child will eat. If the package lists 10 grams of carbs per serving and three serving sizes, your toddler might eat one serving, or 10 grams of carbs. A hungry teenager, on the other hand, might eat two servings, for a total of 20 grams of carbs.

• 4

  Research carb counts in common foods. When you go to the grocery store and buy fresh fruits and vegetables, you won't find carb counts. Fortunately, here are plenty of books and software that list carb counts for common foods. Some are even list products by brand name. Keep a readily-accessible list of foods you commonly serve your child, so you don't have to constantly look up the counts.

• 5

  Use a food scale to weigh products like bread or soup, jot down the total weight in grams, and then look up the percentage of carbs typically found in those foods in a reference book. For example, French bread has a carb factor of 50 percent, indicating that half of the product is carbohydrate. If you a piece of breadweighs 60 grams, the carb count would be 50 percent of 60, or 30 grams.

• 6

  Total the carb counts for a meal. Look at the whole menu for your child's meal, choose the appropriate method for carb counting, and add up the carbs in everything you think he'll eat.

• 7

  Calculate your child's insulin requirement. Your child's doctor will give you an insulin-to-carbohydrate ratio designed to keep her within a target range for blood glucose. For example, you may be told to give one unit of fast-acting insulin for every 20 grams of carbohydrate in a meal. An 80-gram meal, then, would be balanced by four units of insulin.