Gestational Diabetes

Gestational Diabetes Many are aware of health hazards and risks while pregnant. One additional hazard, which is frequently overlooked, is the development of diabetes while pregnant. The woman’s body is experiencing numerous hormonal changes and extremes at this moment. Diet becomes essential not only for nutritional value, but for your complete health. As I mentioned before, the hormone regulation and protein system of transport that occurs when the body is breaking down sugars, requires a well-functioning organic system. We compromise our body’s organizational plan, when our hormones and diet are off balance.

Typically, when we hear about a friend or family member developing Gestational Diabetes, the condition is present until after the child is born. However, we have to consider the potential permanent risks to both mother and infant, if Gestational Diabetes goes undetected and unmanaged. Symptoms are typically mild, and can be easily overlooked. Increased thirst, fatigue, vaginal infections, frequent urination, & skin irritation are symptoms which are frequently overlooked simply because they can occur with pregnancy anyway. This is why we absolutely MUST keep up with our prenatal visits. Even though Gestational Diabetes specifically occurs during pregnancy, your risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes is increased. Be sure to adhere to your physician’s advice regarding diet, exercise, and possibly medication regimine. Keep in mind, the particular risks to your unborn infant.

Tests done during pregnancy help determine specific dietary needs, detect possibility of birth difficulties, and these tests can help detect specific delivery risks and expectations. Prenatal care is paramount to ensuring the safest delivery possible. I’ve heard women say, “I don’t know why they have to keep drawing blood from me, every time I go to the doctor”. Well, your body is undergoing constant change with each stage of your pregnancy. There is no need to take additional risks, pregnancy is taxing enough on the body, without the help of additional co-morbidities. We will talk more about Pregnancy and Prenatal care in a later blog.

Here is an insert from the Mayo Clinic:



Causes

By Mayo Clinic Staff

Researchers don't yet know exactly why some women develop gestational diabetes. To understand how gestational diabetes occurs, it can help to understand how pregnancy affects your body's normal processing of glucose. Your body digests the food you eat to produce sugar (glucose) that enters your bloodstream. In response, your pancreas — a large gland behind your stomach — produces insulin. Insulin is a hormone that helps glucose move from your bloodstream into your body's cells, where it's used as energy. During pregnancy, the placenta that connects your growing baby to your blood supply produces high levels of various other hormones. Almost all of them impair the action of insulin in your cells, raising your blood sugar. Modest elevation of blood sugar after meals is normal during pregnancy. As your baby grows, the placenta produces more and more insulin-blocking hormones. In gestational diabetes, the placental hormones provoke a rise in blood sugar to a level that can affect the growth and welfare of your baby. Gestational diabetes usually develops during the last half of pregnancy — sometimes as early as the 20th week, but usually not until later.

Risk factors

By Mayo Clinic Staff

Any woman can develop gestational diabetes, but some women are at greater risk. Risk factors for gestational diabetes include:

• • Age greater than 25. Women older than age 25 are more likely to develop gestational diabetes.
• • Family or personal health history. Your risk of developing gestational diabetes increases if you have pre-diabetes — slightly elevated blood sugar that may be a precursor to type 2 diabetes — or if a close family member, such as a parent or sibling, has type 2 diabetes. You're also more likely to develop gestational diabetes if you had it during a previous pregnancy, if you delivered a baby who weighed more than 9 pounds (4.1 kilograms), or if you had an unexplained stillbirth.
• • Excess weight. You're more likely to develop gestational diabetes if you're significantly overweight with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher.
• • Nonwhite race. For reasons that aren't clear, women who are black, Hispanic, American Indian or Asian are more likely to develop gestational diabetes.

Complications

By Mayo Clinic Staff

Most women who have gestational diabetes deliver healthy babies. However, gestational diabetes that's not carefully managed can lead to uncontrolled blood sugar levels and cause problems for you and your baby, including an increased likelihood of needing delivery by C-section.

Complications that may affect your baby: If you have gestational diabetes, your baby may be at increased risk of:

• • Excessive birth weight. Extra glucose in your bloodstream crosses the placenta, which triggers your baby's pancreas to make extra insulin. This can cause your baby to grow too large (macrosomia). Very large babies are more likely to become wedged in the birth canal, sustain birth injuries or require a C-section birth.
• • Early (preterm) birth and respiratory distress syndrome. A mother's high blood sugar may increase her risk of going into labor early and delivering her baby before its due date. Or her doctor may recommend early delivery because the baby is growing so large. Babies born early may experience respiratory distress syndrome — a condition that makes breathing difficult. Babies with this syndrome may need help breathing until their lungs mature and become stronger. Babies of mothers with gestational diabetes may experience respiratory distress syndrome even if they're not born early.
• • Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Sometimes babies of mothers with gestational diabetes develop low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) shortly after birth because their own insulin production is high. Severe episodes of hypoglycemia may provoke seizures in the baby. Prompt feedings and sometimes an intravenous glucose solution can return the baby's blood sugar level to normal.
• • Jaundice. This yellowish discoloration of the skin and the whites of the eyes may occur if a baby's liver isn't mature enough to break down a substance called bilirubin, which normally forms when the body recycles old or damaged red blood cells. Although jaundice usually isn't a cause for concern, careful monitoring is important.
• • Type 2 diabetes later in life. Babies of mothers who have gestational diabetes have a higher risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes later in life.

Untreated gestational diabetes can result in a baby's death either before or shortly after birth.

Complications that may affect you

Gestational diabetes may also increase the mother's risk of:

• • High blood pressure, preeclampsia and eclampsia. Gestational diabetes increases your risk of developing high blood pressure during your pregnancy. It also raises your risk of preeclampsia and eclampsia — two serious complications of pregnancy that cause high blood pressure and other symptoms that can threaten the lives of both mother and baby.
• • Future diabetes. If you have gestational diabetes, it's more likely to happen again during a future pregnancy. You're also more likely to develop type 2 diabetes as you get older. However, making healthy lifestyle choices such as eating healthy foods and exercising can help reduce the risk of future type 2 diabetes. Of those women with a history of gestational diabetes who reach their ideal body weight after delivery, fewer than one in four develop type 2 diabetes.

I hope the information provided here proves to be very helpful. Whether you are expecting a child now or plan to in the future, be sure to consider all associated health risks. Diabetes is very prevalent in our “minority” communities. Join the fight against Diabetes by arming yourself with understanding, management, and prevention!