Basic Facts on Gestational Diabetes for a Better Understanding
For many, diabetes can be a blessing because it is not as life threatening as some diseases like Aids or cancer. This disease can be dealt with, provided it is discovered before it becomes fatal, and the patient tries figures out what to do if ever he/she is on the brink of being diagnosed with diabetes.
There are three types of diabetes. Gestational diabetes is the third and the least dangerous, if handled wisely. It is a form of diabetes that non-diabetic women often develop when they are expecting. Recent studies have shown that at least 3, in every 100 pregnant women, discover that they are suffering from this mild and temporary disorder. Gestational diabetes is now a common disease, in which the pancreas stops producing insulin or fails to produce insulin properly.
Gestational diabetes is not dangerous for the mother or the baby, because it usually begins a couple of weeks into the pregnancy, and ends after the baby has been born. An expectant woman tends to produce sufficient amount of insulin. However pregnant women, who are suffering from this brief illness, develop a partial blockage in their insulin, triggered by other hormones produced during pregnancy. This blockage is called insulin resistance. Another reason that may lead to this disorder is weight gain, which obviously pregnant women gain.
There are numerous factors which can cause diabetes during a pregnancy. The most common are patients who are diagnosed with this type of disorder, are overweight women, and those who are 25 years old and above, are more at risk of having this type of diabetes. There are two types of women who develop this disease during their pregnancy, first, it can be genetic and secondly those who had to get their pregnancies aborted due to unexplained miscarriage or stillbirth. A few other factors include previously delivering a large baby, having high blood pressure and being diagnosed with diabetes while pregnant before.
The symptoms of Gestational diabetes are mild and may not even be visible. However brief this disease is, some women either experience all or a few of these things, blurry vision, unquenched thirst and frequent urination, laziness, weight loss and vaginal infections. It is better to get pregnant women tested for gestational diabetes, even though they don’t show any symptoms, because it can cause complication such as hypertension in the mother, difficulty in delivery due to a large baby, and breathing problems in the child.
Diagnosis of Gestational diabetes is usually done through a glucose tolerance test. This specific test should be done in the second trimester of the pregnancy. For pregnant women who have a family history of women suffering from this disease are at high risk, and their gynecologist may carry out this specific test as early as the third month of the pregnancy. Even though, Gestational diabetes is short lived, it has to be taken well care of and frequent trips to the doctor are strongly advised
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