What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a serious medical condition, characterized by chronically elevated blood glucose levels. Glucose is an essential sugar that fuels the body. The hormone insulin, produced by the pancreas, is crucial in the absorption of glucose from the bloodstream so that it can be converted into energy in the body cells. With diabetes, poor insulin production, or insulin resistance, interferes with your ability to absorb glucose. Gestational diabetes can cause health problems in both mother and baby. It develops typically between 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy. It often occurs in women who have no prior family history of diabetes. It impairs your body’s ability to absorb glucose and leads to high blood sugar levels. Pregnancy hormones cause insulin resistance, and this raises blood glucose levels. Gestational diabetes may also increase the mother’s risk of high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia.

Gestational diabetes can put a pregnancy at risk, and requires careful monitoring by your obstetrician.

Having the disease increases the baby’s risk of:

• Growing large inside the mother- macrosomia. This may require as c-section delivery

• High birth weight

• Pre-term labour

• Low glucose levels at birth

• Jaundice

All these risks can be managed with diligent antenatal care and careful blood glucose monitoring.