|
Gestational diabetes is
a form of diabetes that non-diabetic women are often
diagnosed with when they are pregnant. In a recent study
taken in the United States, the results showed that at least
3 in every 100 pregnant women discover that they are
suffering from this disorder. Diabetes is now a very common
disease in which the pancreas stops producing insulin or
fail to produce insulin properly.
This form of diabetes
is not very serious for health because it usually begins a
couple of weeks into the pregnancy and vanishes after the
baby is born. An expectant woman tends to produce sufficient
amount of insulin, however pregnant women, who are suffering
from this temporary disorder, develop a partial blockage in
their insulin triggered by other hormones produced during
pregnancy. This is called insulin resistance. Another reason
that may lead to this disorder is weight gain which
obviously pregnant women experience a lot.
There are various
factors involved which trigger diabetes during pregnancy.
Most frequent candidates for this type of disorder are
overweight women and those who are 25 years old and above
are more at risk of having this diabetes. There are two
types of women who develop this disease during their
pregnancy, first, those women who have a family history of
diabetes and secondly those who had to get their pregnancies
terminated due to unexplained miscarriage or stillbirth. A
few other factors include previously delivering a large
baby, having high blood pressure and being diagnosed with
diabetes while pregnant before.
The symptoms of
Gestational diabetes are often mild and may not even be
visible. However there are women who experience a few or all
of these things, blurry vision, frequent thirst and
urination, laziness, weight loss and vaginal infections. It
is better to get pregnant women tested for gestational
diabetes even though they don’t show any signs of having the
symptoms because it can cause complication such as
hypertension in the mother, difficulty in delivery due to a
large baby, and breathing problems in the child. It is
better to be prepared, rather than finding out when it’s too
late.
Diagnosis of diabetes
of this sort is usually done through a glucose tolerance
test. This specific examination should be taken during the
24th to the 28th week of pregnancy. For pregnant women who
have a family history of women suffering from this disease
and are of high risk, their gynecologist may perform this
specific test as early as third month of the pregnancy.
While taking the
tolerance test the expectant mother- to- be has to drink a
glucose solution. After an hour, a sample of her blood is
taken to check for the glucose level. When the reading is a
glucose level of no more than 140 mg/dl, the patient is
considered not to have diabetes.
One way of preventing
gestational diabetes taking place in a pregnancy is to
maintain ideal weight once falling pregnant, or while
planning the pregnancy. For those with high risk factors,
early and regular check-up normally help them maintain their
general health during pregnancy. |
