Posts Tagged ‘Gestational Diabetes’

Gestational Diabetes & How To Manage It – Part 3

July 18th, 2009 Admin

Gestational Diabetes Blood Glucose MeterRead Gestational Diabetes & Its Complications – Part 1 for what GD is and its complications and Gestational Diabetes & How to Detect it – Part 2 for ways to find out if you have it.

Here are some general ways to manage your Gestational Diabetes:

1. Know Your Blood Glucose Level and Keep it Under Control. By testing how much glucose is in your blood with a handy Blood Glucose Meter, you are in better control of keeping diabetes under check.

For regular monitoring of blood glucose level, you may need to test your blood glucose several times a day.

2. Eat a Healthy Diet. More often than not, controlling carbohydrates intake is an important part of a healthy diet for women with GD.

3. Perform Regular and Moderate Physical Activity. Exercise can help control blood glucose levels. Pick an exercise that best suits you.

4. Keep to a Healthy Weight. The amount of weight gain that is healthy for you very much depends on how much you weighed prior to pregnancy.

It is important to track both your overall weight, as well as, your weekly rate of weight gain.

5. Insulin. Some women with Gestational Diabetes may even need to take insulin to help manage their diabetes. The extra insulin can help lower their blood sugar level.

6. Keep a Daily Record of Your Diet, Physical Activity and Glucose Level. Women with GD should write down their blood glucose numbers, physical activity, as well as, the food they consume in a daily record book. This can help track how well the treatment is working, and if anything renders a change.

What happens after you have delivered your baby? For some women with Gestational Diabetes, their blood glucose levels usually go back to normal after the baby is delivered.

Towards the sixth week after the delivery, you should have your blood glucose checked, as it also helps to assess your risk of getting diabetes in the future.

Women who have had Gestational Diabetes and children, whose mothers had GD, are at a higher lifetime risk of developing obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.

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Gestational Diabetes & How To Detect It – Part 2

July 14th, 2009 Admin

Read Gestational Diabetes & Its Complications – Part 1 for what GD is and its complications.

How to detect GD? Screening for Gestational Diabetes is usually performed between the 24th and 28th week of pregnancy. However, if you are at a higher risk of GD, you should have your blood glucose checked as early as possible during your pregnancy.

There are two manners of testing:

One-Step Approach. After fasting for 4 to 8 hours, blood glucose is then measured. The process will be repeated again 2 hours after consuming a sugar drink. This test is called an oral glucose tolerance test.

Two-Step Approach. Blood glucose is measured 1 hour after drinking a sugar drink. If the blood glucose level is high after 1 hour, there is a possibility of having Gestational Diabetes.

An oral glucose tolerance test will be performed to assess the presence of GD.

Read Gestational Diabetes & How to Manage it – Part 3.

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Gestational Diabetes & Its Complications – Part 1

July 10th, 2009 Admin

Gestational DiabetesGestational Diabetes is a type of diabetes that occurs only during pregnancy. Like Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes, Gestational Diabetes affects the way your body uses glucose.

High glucose level occurs when your body is not able to to make and use all the insulin it needs for pregnancy. This could be due to the changing hormones and weight gain. This means your body is unable to use the energy from the food that you eat.

Most women do not experience any signs or symptoms of Gestational Diabetes. When they do occur, signs and symptoms include excessive thirst and increased urination.

Are you prone to developing Gestational Diabetes? These factors put you at slightly higher risk of developing Gestational Diabetes during pregnancy:

* Being overweight prior to pregnancy.
* Detected glucose in your urine.
* Impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose.
* Family history of diabetes.
* Previously given birth to a stillborn baby.
* Experienced Gestational Diabetes during previous pregnancy.

What are some of the complications of Gestational Diabetes?

Uncontrolled Gestational Diabetes can affect the developing baby. Some potential risks include:

1. The baby’s body is larger than normal, a condition known as macrosomia. A large baby may need to be delivered through a cesarean section instead of naturally through the vagina.

2. The baby experiences a sharp drop in blood glucose level called hypoglycemia. Start to breastfeed right away and this can help to get more glucose to the baby. The baby may also need to get glucose through a tube into his or her blood.

3. The baby may experience Respiratory Distress Syndrome, and have trouble breathing.

Read Gestational Diabetes & How to Detect it – Part 2.

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Prevent Your Children From Getting Type 2 Diabetes

June 29th, 2009 Admin

As today’s children become heavier and become more sedentary, we see the number of Type 2 Diabetes in children keeps going up.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about five in every 100,000 children were reported with Type 2 Diabetes from 2002 to 2003.

According to the American Diabetes Association, 1 in 6 overweight adolescents ages 12-19 have pre-diabetes.

Nyla Wright, a Philadelphia-area second-grader, was diagnosed with the Type Two Diabetes last year.

Unlike other 8 year-old kiddos, Nyla has to control what she pops into her mouth. Not only does she need to control her Type 2 Diabetes with proper diet, she also needs exercise and medication.

It’s true that the majority of obese children don’t get diabetes, but if a child has a family history, or a mother who had gestational diabetes was obese while pregnant or did not breast-feed, he or she can be at risk.

If you have chubby and sedentary kids, and you don’t want them to be like Nyla, it’s important that you do something now to help them with Type 2 Diabetes prevention.

Start with increasing their level of physical activity by having more outdoor activities and cutting down their time spent on watching television and playing computer games.

Change the high-calorie, high-fat eating habits to healthy eating habits that include lots of whole grains, veggies and proteins.

Helping them stay active and maintaining a healthy weight is what you, as a responsible parent, should do.

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Sarah, A Type 2 Diabetic – Part 1

May 18th, 2009 Admin

A petite, animated woman, Sarah isn’t someone who strikes you as a chronically ill person. Her complexion looks healthy and she goes to work like any normal person. But, Sarah is a Type 2 diabetic.

What is Type 2 Diabetes? It is a condition whereby the body is unable to produce insulin or becomes insensitive to its presence in the bloodstream.

When a person has diabetes, the cells of her body are starved of the energy they need to survive and glucose builds up in the blood, causing damage to major organs such as the kidneys, eyes, nerves and heart. It is thus critical to monitor and control the blood sugar levels every day.

A lawyer by profession, Sarah recounts how her blood sugar spiraled up during her second pregnancy.

Gestational diabetes occurs in roughly 4% of all pregnant women, as a reaction to the hormones released by the growing foetus.

Even though the condition tends to be resolved once the baby is born, chances are it will occur again in subsequent pregnancies and some of the women – like Sarah – go on to develop Type 2 Diabetes in later years.

After the birth of her bouncing baby boy, the levels of glucose in Sarah’s blood went back to normal and the mother of two continued to visit her doctor, who advised her to control her diet and become more physically active as well as go to get regular check-ups to monitor her sugar levels.

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