What is gestational diabetes? Its causes, treatment, and effects on the fetus

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Recently, more and more people are searching for "gestational diabetes" on Instagram and other sites and purchasing Fusubon.
So today, I'm going to tell you about the causes of gestational diabetes, how to prevent it, and what to do if you do get it.

What is gestational diabetes? Measuring a pregnant woman's blood sugar level.

What is gestational diabetes?

There are three main types of glucose metabolism disorders that require attention due to high blood sugar levels during pregnancy. Gestational diabetes is one of them.

"Pregnancy complicated by diabetes"

A state in which a person who was diagnosed with diabetes becomes pregnant. If you have been diagnosed with diabetes before pregnancy, it is very important to manage your blood sugar well, and if you have diabetic complications (retinopathy or nephropathy), to have your condition evaluated and then plan your pregnancy accordingly in order to give birth to a healthy baby.

Overt diabetes during pregnancy

These include sugar metabolism disorders, such as undiagnosed diabetes that may have existed before pregnancy.

"Gestational diabetes"

This is a condition in which a person who had no problems with their sugar metabolism (blood sugar level) before pregnancy develops abnormalities in their sugar metabolism (high blood sugar level) for the first time during pregnancy. This is a condition in which a mild sugar metabolism abnormality occurs that is not as severe as diabetes. Note that women who have already been diagnosed with diabetes before pregnancy or who are diagnosed with "definite diabetes" during pregnancy are not included in gestational diabetes, but these are more severe conditions than gestational diabetes and require more strict management of blood sugar.

What causes gestational diabetes?

So why does glucose metabolism become abnormal during pregnancy?

This is because the hormones (human placental lactogen, estrogen, and progesterone) that increase during pregnancy have a stronger effect of raising blood sugar levels. This tendency increases as the pregnancy progresses.

Because humans have suffered from hunger for a long time, it is thought that a mechanism was developed to secrete hormones that increase blood sugar levels in order to provide nutrition to babies.

In today's world where we eat a lot, if you eat a normal diet during pregnancy, you will need a lot of insulin to lower your blood sugar level, which puts a strain on the pancreas. If this condition continues for a while, your pancreas' ability to secrete insulin will weaken, and you will develop gestational diabetes.

The reason why you are more likely to gain weight during pregnancy is that the hormones that try to keep your blood sugar levels high cause you to secrete a lot of insulin, which is then stored as fat.

Effects on the fetus

Poor control of the mother's blood sugar levels due to gestational diabetes increases the risk of the baby having congenital abnormalities.

In addition, there are many cases of premature birth, polyhydramnios, and pregnancy-induced hypertension, making it one of the high-risk pregnancies.

In addition, gestational diabetes can lead to large babies, which can make births more difficult.

In addition, in women with gestational diabetes, the body develops faster than the central nervous system, so they are more likely to develop shoulder dystocia, in which the head passes through during birth but the shoulders do not. Therefore, if labor is prolonged, a Caesarean section becomes an option.

Furthermore, if the mother's blood sugar control is poor during the later stages of pregnancy, the fetus is also exposed to hyperglycemia, which, in a normal fetus, causes the fetal pancreas to continue producing large amounts of insulin.

Insulin suppresses the synthesis of pulmonary surfactant in the fetus, so the mother continues to produce large amounts of insulin, which increases the risk of developing neonatal respiratory distress syndrome after the fetus is born. On the other hand, if sufficient blood sugar control is achieved from the early stages of pregnancy, the risk is the same as in a normal pregnancy.

Quoted from Wikipedia.

What is gestational diabetes? Measuring a pregnant woman's blood sugar level.

How to prevent gestational diabetes?

Once you have gestational diabetes, the chances of developing regular diabetes after giving birth also increase, so to prevent gestational diabetes, we recommend that you measure your blood sugar levels before and after meals when you become pregnant. (We recommend purchasing a commercially available machine that uses needles to measure blood sugar levels.)
If you know how much your blood sugar level rises with your regular meals, you can prevent yourself from consuming too much carbohydrates.
The only thing we ingest that can raise blood sugar levels is carbohydrates, so the best way to prevent this is to follow a low-carbohydrate diet.
Once you become pregnant, hormones that raise blood sugar levels are produced, so be aware that it is best to eat a lower-carb diet than usual.