Gestational diabetes,
sometimes called glucose intolerance during pregnancy,
occurs in pregnant women who have never had diabetes before,
most often late in pregnancy around the 24th
to 28th weeks of gestation. During this type of
diabetes, a woman's pancreas produces too much insulin, but
it fails to lower the excessive glucose levels in her blood.
It is important to keep in
mind that gestational diabetes does not cause any symptoms
at all in most women. The symptoms that occasionally do
occur, including increased thirst, hunger, and urination,
weight loss despite increased appetite, blurred vision,
fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and frequent bladder, vaginal,
and skin infections, are common late in pregnancy anyway,
and consequently may be difficult to distinguish as sure
diabetes symptoms. Since the rare symptoms that women do
experience during gestational diabetes are always mild and
never life-threatening, they tend to ignore these bodily
warnings and or shrug them off as natural effects of
pregnancy.
Doctors recommend that
pregnant women be screened for gestational diabetes during
the 24th to the 28th weeks of
pregnancy, when the disease is most likely to occur. In some
cases, Type 1 diabetes or Type 2 diabetes is revealed during
pregnancy, which makes it hard to definitely differentiate
from gestational diabetes. Women to whom this happens should
continue receiving treatment for diabetes throughout and
even after their pregnancy, just to be on the safe side.
Gestational diabetes poses
hardly any threat to the pregnant mother, but can severely
harm the child she is carrying. Since gestational diabetes
occurs late in pregnancy, the baby's body is already formed,
so it will not have the same defects as one born to a mother
with Type 2 diabetes (effective from the beginning of
pregnancy while the baby is growing), but the repercussions
for the child can still be severe. Since the mother has so
much blood glucose, the baby absorbs much of it through her
placenta, and then undergoes the same problem too much
blood glucose and insulin alike that are quickly recognized
by the body as unnecessary and therefore stored as fat. Many
babies born from mothers with untreated gestational diabetes
are abnormally large, a condition called macrosomia. A baby
born from such a mother can also have jaundice or
hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) at birth. As if all these
were not enough, babies who are born with too much insulin
are at high risk for obesity and/or Type 2 diabetes later in
life. In extremely rare cases, some babies die in the womb
solely due to gestational diabetes.
Whether you're a pregnant
mother who has never had diabetes, has always had diabetes
and are showing more frequent or an increased amount of
symptoms, or are not showing any unusual symptoms at all, it
is highly recommended that you be screened for gestational
diabetes during the 24th to the 28th
weeks of your pregnancy. The symptoms are not clear or
threatening enough for you to pick up on yourself, and
getting screened and treated in time could mean a world of
difference for you and your baby.
