Pregnancy calls for a lot of sacrifices. People change the way they live right on the day they see the purple line on the test card.
Yes, pregnancy does bring in changes in you and you are also supposed to change with pregnancy.
Discussing about all changes that come and all that you need to bring in is beyond the scope of this article. We will discuss about the gestational diabetes diet in pregnant women here.
Gestational diabetes
Let us now take a look at what is gestational diabetes? Gestational diabetes is also known as diabetes mellitus. GDM is found to occur only in pregnant women.
If a women gets diabetic during pregnancy, but never had the disease before, chances are high that it is gestational diabetes.
If you are worried about the disease affecting the fetus, then you should stick to a gestational diabetes diet. A gestational diabetes diet has mostly to do with the carbohydrate content that you intake, but there are other food forms also included in gestational diabetes diet.
If you have diabetes during pregnancy or gestational diabetes, your body is unable to produce insulin properly or the insulin produced is unable to act properly.
This can affect the growth of the unborn baby in the womb and it has also been seen that babies born of diabetic mothers have had pituitary hormone related disorders post birth.
If you have a healthy gestational diabetes diet plan in place then you can avoid the complications, because in any case the diabetes is going to go away once you give birth to the child.
If your body does not produce insulin properly, then there will be an accumulation of glucose in the body, which will lead to diabetes. The carbohydrates are usually responsible for fulfilling the glucose requirements of the body. Glucose again is used for production of energy.
Gestational diabetes diet
Gestational diabetes diet consists of a healthy combination of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. The gestational diabetes diet is all the more important if you are on external insulin.
It is difficult to advice a generalized gestational diabetes diet because of different food habits across the globe, but one can always mix and match between different food items to create a healthy gestational diabetes diet.
Breads, pasta, rice, grains, potatoes, sugar, chocolate etc. are rich sources of carbohydrates. You should keep track of the amount of carbohydrates you take everyday.
Eat at the same time everyday and in the same amount. Though carbohydrate is the culprit in causing gestational diabetes, you cannot cut too low on carbohydrates because you need to have 45% – 60% of your calories coming from that food group.
However you can include lots of fresh vegetables, proteins and fiber rich foods in your gestational diabetes diet to cut low on blood sugar count. The mantra is not to skip on carbohydrates, but to eat in a timely manner and avoid excess intake.
If you have been making, do with one slice of bread along with half a cup of cooked pasta – keep it to that.
You can substitute a carbohydrate food item with another, but not eat more. Try to avoid much of juices, syrups, sweets, chocolates etc. That will increase the glucose content in your body.
