What is a pregnant sugar load?

For this purpose, between the 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy, a "50-gram glucose screening test" is applied. For this test, 50 g per hour, whether hungry or full, The blood sugar (venous plasma glucose level) of the expectant mother is checked 1 hour after drinking water containing glucose.

100 g for pregnant women whose blood sugar is 140 mg/dL or higher. An OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test) is performed. The test needs to be repeated in three hours with 100 g of glucose. After 3 hours of loading, it is determined whether the expectant mother has gestational diabetes.

After the sugar load test to be performed on the expectant mother, excessive physical activity should not be done, and nothing should be eaten during this process. These are important for the sugar loading test to give accurate results.

What are the risks of gestational diabetes for mother and baby?

The presence of diabetes before pregnancy or its emergence during pregnancy poses some risks for mother and baby. The more regularly the blood sugar levels are monitored in this process in pregnant women with diabetes, the fewer the risks that may occur due to diabetes.

The risks of gestational diabetes are less than those of pre-pregnancy diabetes. However, this condition must be determined and treated with a sugar load test in pregnant women. Otherwise, problems such as pregnancy poisoning, high blood pressure, premature birth, and miscarriage are more common in expectant mothers than in pregnant women without diabetes.

Babies born to women who had diabetes before pregnancy may have some anomalies. However, gestational diabetes does not cause such a problem. However, in both types of diabetes, the baby may be born overweight; that is, macrosomic infant development may occur. In this case, since the mothers will be delivered by cesarean section, there may be some risks related to this.

When blood sugar levels are controlled during pregnancy in expectant mothers, the risks that may occur will decrease proportionally. Therefore, it is extremely important to monitor HbA1C and glucose levels in expectant mothers.

What Are the Possible Risks to the Baby of a Mother with Diabetes?

  • Since the lungs do not develop much after birth, the baby may have respiratory distress.
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  • The baby is smaller than it should be.
  • Risks of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), hypocalcemia, polycythemia, and hyperbilirubinemia (jaundice) in the baby after birth
  • The development of advanced heart diseases,
  • Having kidney abnormalities
  • Brain and central nervous system anomalies,
  • ear anomalies,
  • Anomalies in the digestive system,
  • Problems occurring in the babies of pregnant women with gestational diabetes who are not diagnosed and followed up are two times more common than in normal pregnant women.

How is gestational diabetes treated?

In the case of gestational diabetes, oral diabetes medications are not given to expectant mothers like normal diabetics. Instead, treatment methods such as diet and exercise applications and insulin administration are preferred.

With a diet program suitable for pregnancy, prepared together by the doctor and dietitian, the mother-to-be is fed. Chocolate, ice cream, desserts prepared with sherbet, and foods made from white flour are not included in this nutrition list.

During this diet, the expectant mother does exercises recommended by the doctor, which are also effective in regulating blood sugar. These exercises should be chosen from sports such as walking and swimming. Diabetes is controlled by giving insulin to expectant mothers who do not benefit from these applications.

Pregnant women with gestational diabetes (75 g) 6 weeks after delivery Sugar metabolisms are investigated by performing the OGTT test.