Gestational diabetes Symptoms and you and your baby

Gestational diabetes symptoms only affect women during pregnancy. This form of diabetes mellitus is usually very difficult to identify as it can easily be confused with signs and sympotms that are normally experienced during pregnancy.

These typical symptoms experienced during pregnancy and are commonly linked to the early symptoms of diabetes include:

• Increased thirst
• Needing to urinate frequently
• Hunger
• Tiredness

The underlined problems of gestational diabetes symptoms are the same as diabetes type two with the root cause being the inability of the body to control and use the glucose in the blood by converting it into energy.

The high blood sugar levels in the causes the problems when not controlled or transformed into usable energy for the cells of the body. Gestational diabetes could be an immediate threat to your health as poorly controlled diabetes in pregnancy puts you and your baby at a much risk of serious complications.

Gestational diabetes and your baby

Having gestational diabetes untreated could affect you and your baby’s health. The following are some of the common complications:

• Having high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia) can cause your baby to grow larger, which can make delivery difficult. A caesarean delivery is needed if the baby becomes too large or if the doctor deems it necessary to protect both your health and the health of the baby.
• At birth your baby may have low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia). Hypoglycaemia is caused because the baby makes extra insulin to respond to your high blood sugar levels.
• Babies may have low levels of calcium and magnesium in their blood.
• Your newborn baby is at risk of jaundice (yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes).
• There is an increased risk that your baby will be born with congenital problems, such as a heart defect.
• Sometimes, babies can be born with lung problems making breathing difficult (this is normally corrected after birth).
• Respiratory problems - babies may born with underdeveloped lungs
• Jaundice (yellow discoloration of skin and white of eyes) - This can easily be treated.
• There is also a slightly higher chance of stillbirth or death as a newborn.
• There is an increased risk of the baby becoming obese as a child and develop type two diabetes in later life.
• Hypoglycaemia - Babies develop low blood sugar right after birth because they have been getting large quantity of glucose from their mothers so their production of insulin is high.

Gestational diabetes and your health

Gestational diabetes may not be an immediate threat to your health. However, poorly controlled diabetes in pregnancy puts you at a higher risk of various problems. These complications include:

• Premature labour
• High blood pressure (Hypertension)
• having too much amniotic fluid
• Macrosomia (big baby) - Babies may grow too large because of the extra glucose they're receiving is more than is needed so the extra is stored as fat.
• Dystocia - Failure to progress in labour. Caesarean Section may be needed.
• Death or Stillbirth - There is an increased risk to babies if their mother has diabetes.
• You are also more likely to develop gestational diabetes in future pregnancies, and are at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.

Because of these likely risks it is important that you be tested for gestational diabetes if you are among the high risk group. See signs of diabetes melletus page for information on the risk factors of gestational diabetes.

To signs of diabetes mellitus page

Gestational diabetes

Signs of Gestational diabetes symptoms

Gestational diabetes symptoms treatment