What are the signs of gestational diabetes?If you are planning on getting pregnant it is important that you know the signs of gestational diabetes. Find out the relationship between this type of diabetes and pregnancy and how it can affect you. Whenever diabetes is diagnosed during pregnancy it is called gestational diabetes mellitus. When diagnosed before pregnancy it is called, yes you guessed it, pregestational diabetes mellitus. Now it is time for the signs. The signs of this type of diabetes are sometimes not present at all or they can be confused with normal pregnancy conditions. These include: • excessive thirst, • frequent urination and • Craving for sweet sugary foods. It should be routine to screening for this illness as part of your prenatal care. That is during the pregnancy period. It is important that you are screened if you display the symptoms of diabetes type two. Your doctor could recommend a glucose challenge test between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy because the condition can't usually be detected earlier. The test consists of drinking a sugar solution then your blood will be tested an hour later. If the blood sugar is over 140 mg/dl, in the first test, a second test is done. Your health care professional may also have you do a fasting glucose test. How does it work? After fasting overnight, your doctor will give you a highly concentrated glucose solution. S/he will test your blood sugar levels every hour afterwards for three hours. If at least two of the test shows abnormally high blood sugar levels you will be diagnosed as having gestational diabetes. Doing these tests are the only accurate way of diagnosing diabetes during the gestational period.
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