How Do You Know You Have Gestational Diabetes During Pregnancy?

You might have heard before that there are a lot of women who have gestational diabetes during pregnancy. This is a kind of diabetes that appears only while women are expecting and it disappears in the moment the little one is born.

How to recognize gestational diabetes in pregnant women?

The sad truth about this condition is that there are no actual symptoms. This is why the majority of the pregnant women have to take a glucose-screening test when they are 24-28 weeks pregnant.

Gestational Diabetes During PregnancyNonetheless in case for some reasons you’re at high risks for the condition or you are showing signs of diabetes most probably your doctor will make a screening test for pregnant women’s gestational diabetes the first time you visit him and then the test is repeated again at 24-28 weeks in case the first results have been negative.

Remember that in case you have a positive result that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have gestational diabetes during pregnancy for sure. In order to be certain you will need to take a longer test.

Which women are at higher risk for having gestational diabetes?

There are some factors that make some women be more likely to have gestational diabetes when pregnant than others, and you should keep an eye out for this condition in case you are obese, if you have sugar in your urine, in case you were pregnant before and you had gestational diabetes then too, or if there have been cases of diabetes in your family.

There are some other factors as well that could indicate this condition and so your health care provider could screen you if you had a child before that had a larger weight at birth. In some of the cases the borderline is at 8 pounds 13 ounces, while others use 9 pounds 14 ounces as the border.

Also the doctor could suspect gestational diabetes during pregnancy if you had an unexpected stillbirth, or a baby that had a birth defect, if you’re over 35 or in case you have high blood pressure.

There has been a study presented in 2010 and according to this there could be a connection between excessive weight gain during the first trimester of pregnancy and gestational diabetes in pregnant women. According to the researchers those women are at the highest risk who have been overweight to begin with and those that are not white.

Demographics and the predisposition of gestational diabetes in women

Although there are known risk factors, there are still many women who didn’t have any risk factors and still developed gestational diabetes during pregnancy. This is why the screen testing is ordered as it has been mentioned before.

There is a small group of women that is unlikely to be affected by gestational diabetes in pregnant women and they might not get tested. You could be in this small group in case you are younger than 25 and you are not a member of those racial groups that have a high prevalence of diabetes.

Knowing more about gestational diabetes during pregnancy may not prevent you from getting it but it can help you treat this health issue with wisdom so your baby will be safe.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here