When is too
much sugar
‘too much’ during
pregnancy?
Craving sugar during pregnancy is
normal and having your urine tested for sugar at ante-natal visits is pretty
routine. On the odd occasion when sugar is found in your urine, it simply means
that excess blood sugar has spilled from your kidneys into your urine.
After 28 weeks, all women are
checked for ‘gestational diabetes’ or ‘pregnancy diabetes’. At this stage, hormones from the placenta can cause an ‘insulin resistance’.
As a result, the body sometimes can’t make enough insulin to cope with higher
blood sugar levels associated with pregnancy. This causes gestational diabetes,
and if not treated, can lead to a few complications.
Urine testing is done with labstix,
so the results are instant. How often and how much sugar is found in your urine
will tell your doctor or midwife whether more tests are necessary e.g. glucose
screening or glucose tolerance tests.
Gestational diabetes is more likely
to affect overweight and older women and those who have a family history of
diabetes.
Symptoms of gestational diabetes:
Sudden
and intense bouts of hunger with an urgent thirst. Needing to pee more often.
Frequent vaginal and urinary tract infections. High blood pressure.
Complications of gestational
diabetes (if left untreated):
Very large baby, hypertension and the risk of
preeclampsia.
What can you do?
For your glucose screening test at
28 weeks, you will be given something very sweet to drink and an hour later,
your blood will be tested for sugar levels. A normal reading will be less than 140 mg/dL or 7.8 mmol/L. If
your doctor/midwife is not happy with the results, you may need to have a
glucose-tolerance test.
Gestational diabetes can be easily
managed with diet, exercise and if necessary, medication.
Your blood sugar levels and urine
will be tested regularly.
Because you may be more prone to
infections (especially bladder or UTIs), take extra precautions to prevent
these by always wiping from front to back after using the toilet, not wearing tight
jeans or underwear and urinating after sex.
Overweight women who exercise, cut
their risks of gestational diabetes by half!
After the birth:
Your health-care will be pretty
routine. Luckily, most women (98%) recover from gestational diabetes. Very few (about
2%) may go on to becoming type 2 diabetics after the pregnancy, or when they
are older.
Women who have had gestational
diabetes should go for regular check-ups, control their weight with diet and
regular exercise, and tell their doctor if they notice any diabetes symptoms.
