Gestational Diabetes Or Diabetes of Pregnancy!
When a woman is pregnant, it's an exciting time in her life.
She's carrying a brand new human being and helping create every new cell in the baby's body.
Most women want to do everything possible for the baby to grow strong, healthy and smart.
That excitement can turn to fear during the pregnancy if she develops gestational diabetes.
The term "gestational diabetes" means a diagnosis of diabetes is given during pregnancy.
Often, a woman can be totally healthy for 20 or 30 years in her life and then when she becomes pregnant, she suddenly develops diabetes.
This happens about 4% of the time.
When gestational diabetes develops, it's important to try to get this condition under control.
Women with gestational diabetes risk having complications with pregnancy, such as pre-eclampsia, a serious condition that can result in death.
The baby is also at risk because babies that are born from mothers with diabetes are larger.
It's possible for the baby to hold onto the extra fat they are born with and become obese at an early age in life, which means that they are subjected to all the health risks of obesity and also low self-esteem for every year they are obese.
If a woman's body is unable to utilize her own insulin during gestational diabetes, her pancreas will pump out abundant supplies of insulin.
However, the insulin her body makes is blocked from entering her cells and it circulates in her bloodstream.
This results in high levels of sugar in her blood circulation also.
The baby ends up getting some of that extra blood sugar because it crosses the placenta.
When that occurs, the baby has high blood sugar levels and the baby's pancreas creates extra insulin to try to bring it down to normal.
The process wears down the pancreas.
All that extra blood sugar ends up going to storage in the baby's body where it ends up as fat.
Babies who have excess insulin levels soon become children that can become obese...
and adults that can become type 2 diabetics.
Most women who develop gestational diabetes find the condition goes away after the baby's birth, but a small number continue to have diabetes.
And women who have had gestational diabetes have a 40 to 60% chance of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.
She's carrying a brand new human being and helping create every new cell in the baby's body.
Most women want to do everything possible for the baby to grow strong, healthy and smart.
That excitement can turn to fear during the pregnancy if she develops gestational diabetes.
The term "gestational diabetes" means a diagnosis of diabetes is given during pregnancy.
Often, a woman can be totally healthy for 20 or 30 years in her life and then when she becomes pregnant, she suddenly develops diabetes.
This happens about 4% of the time.
When gestational diabetes develops, it's important to try to get this condition under control.
Women with gestational diabetes risk having complications with pregnancy, such as pre-eclampsia, a serious condition that can result in death.
The baby is also at risk because babies that are born from mothers with diabetes are larger.
It's possible for the baby to hold onto the extra fat they are born with and become obese at an early age in life, which means that they are subjected to all the health risks of obesity and also low self-esteem for every year they are obese.
If a woman's body is unable to utilize her own insulin during gestational diabetes, her pancreas will pump out abundant supplies of insulin.
However, the insulin her body makes is blocked from entering her cells and it circulates in her bloodstream.
This results in high levels of sugar in her blood circulation also.
The baby ends up getting some of that extra blood sugar because it crosses the placenta.
When that occurs, the baby has high blood sugar levels and the baby's pancreas creates extra insulin to try to bring it down to normal.
The process wears down the pancreas.
All that extra blood sugar ends up going to storage in the baby's body where it ends up as fat.
Babies who have excess insulin levels soon become children that can become obese...
and adults that can become type 2 diabetics.
Most women who develop gestational diabetes find the condition goes away after the baby's birth, but a small number continue to have diabetes.
And women who have had gestational diabetes have a 40 to 60% chance of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.
