Signs Of Gestational Diabetes
Gestational diabetes is a condition that affects pregnant women and is mostly seen in women above 25 years of age. It is necessary for a woman to be aware of the signs of gestational diabetes, so that she may immediately seek medical treatment.
Gestational diabetes is a very common presentation and one in every 25 women suffers from it. It typically occurs during the third trimester of pregnancy. However, this is not necessary because it can potentially occur at anytime during pregnancy. You may be at a risk of developing gestational diabetes, if you are overweight or have an age over 30 years.
Before the signs of gestational diabetes are taken into considerations, the risk factors for gestational diabetes need to be discussed because that is how a doctor may diagnose gestational diabetes in a pregnant woman. If a woman has been diagnosed of gestational diabetes in her previous pregnancy, or if she has an impaired glucose tolerance test, or a positive family history, or she is over 25 years of age, or overweight/obese, or have had a previous bad obstetric history, or an ethnic belonging from African or Asian background, has more chances to develop gestational diabetes. So along with the signs, any of these risk factors are a key to its diagnosis.
Now the first and the most common signs that are associated with gestational diabetes are extreme hunger and thirst. These signs may be present in most of the women because increase blood glucose level has a tendency to increase the amount of urination in a woman, which further sends a message to the brain centres to increase the blood volume, which results in an increase in thirst of the patient.
In similar manner, an increase in blood glucose levels is associated with glucose not being absorbed from the blood and converted into energy. Hence, a woman always feels hungry and tired and no matter how much she eats, she just might not consider the food to be too full.
Women might also notice excessive weight gain during the pregnancy which may be associated with gestational diabetes. Normally, there is a range of weight that is gained by a woman at any specific time of pregnancy which is solely attributable to the foetus. In case of gestational diabetes, the weight gain may be excessive than normal.
If sugar level remains uncontrolled, a pregnant woman might also start to notice blurring in the vision, which may be clinically diagnosed by the doctor after having a complete examination of the internal eye.
There might also be a presence of some non specific symptoms of diabetes such as fatigue, nausea, vomiting and bladder infections. However, it must be noted that even though these symptoms can be evident in many females, however, most of the times, patients do not show any of the above mentioned signs. As a result, the diagnosis of gestational diabetes is mostly made considering the risk factors that were mentioned earlier. If those risk factors are present with/without the presence of the signs, a likely diagnosis of gestational diabetes is made.
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