Pregnancy and Maternal Health Care
Gestational Diabetes
Author: Ann Brown
You have 28 weeks of pregnancy. Your health care provider (doctor / midwife) had been informed that you have gestational diabetes. Should you be concerned about gestational diabetes? The short answer: Yes Good control means a lot for your health and the health of your baby.
What is gestational diabetes?
Pregnant women who have never had diabetes but who have high levels of blood sugar (glucose) during pregnancy, they were classified as having gestational diabetes.
Gestational diabetes affects about 4% of all pregnant women. This corresponds to 135,000 cases of gestational diabetes annually in the United States.
We do not know what causes gestational diabetes, but we have some clues. The placenta supports the baby as it grows. The hormones from the placenta help the baby’s development, but these hormones also block the action of insulin in the body of the mother. This problem is called insulin resistance. The insulin resistance prevents the mother’s body to use insulin. You may need up to three times more insulin.
Gestational diabetes starts when your body is not able to make and use all the insulin it needs for pregnancy. Without enough insulin, glucose can not leave the blood and converted into energy. Glucose builds up in the blood to reach very high levels. This is known as hyperglycemia.
How gestational diabetes can affect your baby?
Gestational diabetes occurs in the mother in late pregnancy, after the baby’s little body is fully formed but while the baby is growing. Because of this, gestational diabetes does not cause birth defects as those seen in mothers with diabetes before pregnancy.
However, the lack of treatment or lack of control of gestational diabetes can affect your baby. When a woman has gestational diabetes, your pancreas works too hard to produce insulin, but insulin does not lower glucose levels in the blood. While insulin does not pass through the placenta, glucose and other nutrients do. Therefore, too much glucose in the blood goes through the placenta, giving the baby high blood glucose levels. This causes the baby’s pancreas produce more insulin to rule out blood glucose. As the baby gets more energy than it needs for growth, excess energy is converted into fat.
Excess fat can lead to macrosomia, or a baby “fat.” Babies with macrosomia face health problems, including shoulder injury at birth. Due to excess insulin produced by the baby’s pancreas, newborns may have low blood sugar and are at higher risk of complications with breathing. Babies with excess insulin become children at risk for obesity and adults at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Treatment for gestational diabetes
Since gestational diabetes can affect your health and the baby, you must begin treatment immediately. Treatment for gestational diabetes aims to keep levels of blood glucose equal to that of pregnant women who have gestational diabetes. Treatment for gestational diabetes always includes a special plan of nutrition and physical activity program. Tests may also include daily blood glucose and insulin injections. You will need help from your doctor, nurse, assistant or other medical staff members to your treatment for gestational diabetes be changed as needed.
For you as a mother, the treatment of gestational diabetes helps lower the risk of a cesarean birth is required for very large babies. Continue the treatment for gestational diabetes will give you a healthy pregnancy and delivery and your baby can help prevent health problems in the future.
Gestational diabetes – Looking ahead
For gestational diabetes usually disappears after pregnancy, but once you have had gestational diabetes is the possibility that 2 out of 3 women to bring back this disease in future pregnancies. However, some women find pregnancy helps diabetes type 1 or type 2. It is very difficult to know whether these women had gestational diabetes or begin to exhibit the symptoms of diabetes during pregnancy. These women should continue treatment for diabetes after delivery.
Many women who have had gestational diabetes later develop more type 2 diabetes. It seems that there is a connection between trends of gestational diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Gestational diabetes and type 2 diabetes have insulin resistance. Some basic changes in lifestyle can help prevent the development of diabetes after gestational diabetes.
Weight loss.
Do you have more than 20% of ideal weight overweight? Down a few pounds can prevent type 2 diabetes develops implementing.
Healthy food choices
Follow some simple guidelines daily as eating variety of foods including fruits and vegetables, limiting fat intake to 30% or less of their daily calories and monitor your portion sizes. A healthy nutrition can prevent diabetes and other health problems.
Physical Activity
Regular physical activity allows your body to use glucose without extra insulin. This helps combat insulin resistance, so the exercise is useful for people with diabetes. Never start a program of physical activity without consulting your doctor.
Keep your worries in perspective
Although gestational diabetes is a concern, the good news is that you and your medical team, including your doctor, obstetrician, nurse and dietitian education, work together to reduce their elevated blood glucose. With this support you can convert your concerns in a healthy pregnancy for a healthy start for your baby.
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