An Overview of Gestational Diabetes

Getting sick is never a good thing for anyone at any time, but when you are pregnant, developing a condition can take on a whole additional set of factors that can raise red flags and concern for you and your unborn baby. Gestational diabetes is one of these potential concerns.

Gestational diabetes is a condition where a form of diabetes exists in the body where there was no diabetes before. It only affects pregnant women and the cause is still unknown at this time. However, medical science does have some ideas as to what may cause it.

What happens during pregnancy is the foetus is provided with all its nutrition through the mother's placenta. The placenta gives off hormones that are necessary for the baby to develop correctly in the womb. The problems start when these hormones interfere in the mother's ability to produce insulin.

The body uses insulin to process sugar and turns it into energy that the mother's body needs to live. With the production of insulin blocked this can't happen and is called resistance to insulin. The mother will develop a condition called hyperglycaemia, which simply means that her sugar levels are too high.

This condition is thought to affect about four percent of women who are pregnant in the United States each year, and it is unknown how many women suffer from gestational diabetes every year world wide.

Continue reading to discover the risk factors for gestational diabetes and to sign up for the free newsletter that offers natural methods for overcoming gestational diabetes.

The reason some develop gestational diabetes and others don't is unclear. However, there are some risk factors that can contribute to gestational diabetes developing.

Gestational diabetes has shown to be more prevalent in women who become pregnant at thirty five years or older, have a history of PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome), are overweight or obese, have a history of gestational diabetes in previous pregnancies or a family history of type II diabetes and are from certain ethnic minorities.

It has now become common for all women who are between 20 and 30 weeks into their pregnancy to be tested for gestational diabetes since the condition has become more common in the last few decades. If you fall into one of the high risk areas described above, it is recommended that you get tested multiple times throughout your pregnancy, once during the first trimester, and then again at regular intervals throughout the following trimesters, as well.

The best pieces of advice to remember when it comes to gestational diabetes is to try to stay calm about it. Any additional stress that the pregnant mother undergoes when diagnosed with any sickness at all during pregnancy, including gestational diabetes, can cause as much harm to the unborn baby as the diabetes can. The best thing to do is to seek the advice of a medical professional and to follow their instructions to the letter. If you disagree with their recommendations about the proper way to treat yourself, then getting a second opinion is the best idea.

Sign up for Diane Ball's free Overcoming Gestational Diabetes newsletter - Overflowing with easy to implement methods to help you discover more about gestational diabetes.

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