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| Gestational Diabetes | Gestational diabetes means elevated blood sugar during pregnancy. This condition occurs nearly in 4% of all pregnancies.
When you are pregnant, some hormones make your insulin less effective at moving glucose from the blood stream to the cells. Therefore the amount of circulating glucose increases. Due to this your baby is able to grow and develop. This “insulin resistance” increases with the advances of pregnancy.
For example, by the third trimester, you will be prone to have higher blood glucose levels after eating than non-pregnant women, despite producing normal and above normal amounts of insulin. During sleep, the excess insulin has a chance to dry up, that will cause morning glucose levels to be lower on average than in non-pregnant women.
During pregnancy almost in all women blood sugar may be higher than normal, but not high enough to have diabetes. During the third trimester of pregnancy these hormonal changes place pregnant woman at high risk for gestational diabetes.
During pregnancy, increased levels of some hormones produced in the placenta help move nutrients from the mother to the developing fetus. Other hormones are secreted by the placenta to help prevent the mother from developing low blood sugar. They work by interrupting the actions of insulin.
During the period of pregnancy, these hormones cause higher blood glucose levels. The body tries to decrease the glucose levels, that’s why it produces more insulin to move glucose from the blood stream into cells.
As a rule, the mother's pancreas is able to make more insulin to conquer the effect of the pregnancy hormones on glucose levels. If, nevertheless, the pancreas can’t make enough insulin to overcome the effect of the increased hormones during pregnancy, glucose levels will increase, causing gestational diabetes.
Gestational Diabetes Complications
Diabetes in a pregnant woman can impact the developing baby a lot. At early stages of pregnancy, maternal diabetes can cause birth defects and increase the rate of miscarriage. The most vulnerable baby’s organs are the brain and heart.
Within the second and third trimester, maternal diabetes can cause over-nutrition and excess growth of the baby. A large fetus increases risks during labor and childbirth. For example, in case of large baby it is often required to perform caesarean deliveries. And in case if baby is delivered vaginally, he or she is at increased risk for trauma to their shoulder.
Besides, when fetal over-nutrition occurs, the baby's blood glucose can get very low after delivery, because it won't be receiving the high blood glucose from the mother any more.
Nevertheless, with proper cure, you can give birth to a healthy baby despite having gestational diabetes.
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