Preggers? Get Tested

Did you know that gestational diabetes affects around 4 percent of all pregnant women which is around 135,000 women in the U.S. each year.

What is gestational diabetes? According to an online medical dictionary, “gestational diabetes is a condition that occurs during pregnancy. Like other forms of diabetes, gestational diabetes involves a defect in the way the body processes and uses sugars (glucose) in the diet (http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Gestational+diabetes).”

These women must then treat their symptoms of diabetes much like the rest of us with blood sugar monitoring, diet, and medications.

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My understanding of how women are affected by gestational diabetes is that the placenta where the baby grows creates a hormone that is to help give nutrients to the baby. This hormone can also block the natural insulin created by the mother. This is also called a insulin resistance.

With high glucose levels, or hyperglycemia, the sugar is not able to leave the blood stream and be passed through the body. During this time period, your pancreas is working twice as hard to create insulin to compensate for the high blood sugars.

Even though, the insulin does not pass through the placenta but the glucose does. This can lead to macrosomia, or a “fat” baby because your baby is having to create more insulin for the extra sugar that is being passed through your body. But your baby is producing more energy for development that it is creating stored fat.  Having a large baby can create issues for the baby and for the mother during child birth. 

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In some cases, after birth, the baby can be affected with hyperinsulinemia which is were the baby's blood sugar can drop to a dangerously low level since he/she is not supplied with the usual high amounts of sugar. If not caught early enough in the pregnancy, gestational diabetes can lead to a miscarriage.

There are claims that after gestational diabetes resolves after delivery, that the mothers will develop Type 2 diabetes later. All women should be tested every 1 to 3 years for diabetes after being diagnose with gestational diabetes.