How Gestational Diabetes Affects You and Your Child

Gestational diabetes is a certain type of diabetes that only pregnant women can get. If a woman has never had diabetes and suddenly develops it during pregnancy, she has gestational diabetes.

Your body normally digests carbohydrates into glucose. Glucose moves to your blood stream after digestion, making it your body's central source of energy. Your pancreas creates a hormone known as insulin, but if you have diabetes, your body does not make enough insulin, or does not use the insulin the way it should. Over time, the glucose builds up in your blood, which can cause high blood sugar or diabetes.

Gestational diabetes is not that common, as for it happens in about 5 percent of all pregnancies. If your health care provider feels that you are at risk for gestational diabetes, they usually test most women when they are about 26 weeks pregnant.

Doctors check for gestational diabetes through a two step test.

First, a health care provider will measure a woman's blood sugar after 1 hour of drinking a sugar drink. If the woman's blood sugar is normal after the 1 hour, she probably does not have gestational diabetes, and will not need further testing. Women who have high blood sugar after the first hour will then be given an oral glucose tolerance test.

In the first few steps of an oral glucose tolerance test, the woman will fast for 4 to 8 hours, and afterwards her health care provider will measure her blood sugar. She will then be given a sugary drink, and her blood sugar will be measured again two hours later.

Most women who have gestational diabetes will give birth to healthy babies as long as they control their blood sugar, maintain a healthy diet, exercise, and keep a healthy weight. In some cases however, the baby can be affected by gestational diabetes.

Some of the effects include, but are not limited to abnormal growth, blood sugar leavels, and jaundice.

For example, the baby's body is larger than it should be. A large baby may need to be delivered by surgery, through a cesarean section, instead of naturally.