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When you take on the title Mom-to-Be, you become responsible for two bodies—yours and the little one growing inside of you. Suddenly, every aspect of your health connects to your precious child, whether your facing symptoms of early pregnancy or you’re in your last trimester. As a pregnant woman, that may include the condition diabetes.
Whether you’re pregnant or not, the word “diabetes” can sound scary. If untreated, this metabolic condition can create serious risks for both mom and baby. However, diabetes is actually a very common and treatable condition in pregnant women—it all comes down to the right medical planning and diabetes care.
To guard your and your baby’s safety as a new momma, dive into this guide on everything you need to know about diabetes and pregnancy.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a long-term metabolic condition that changes how your body converts food into energy by affecting its insulin. Insulin is a digestive hormone originating in the pancreas. It moves glucose (the sugar stored in our bodies) from your bloodstream into your muscles, creating short-term energy stores.
Diabetes can upend this process in two ways:
- By lowering your body’s total insulin production
- By lowering your body’s sensitivity to insulin (i.e., how well it deals with glucose)
When your body can’t use insulin to move glucose into your muscles, it can leave you with a high blood sugar level(hyperglycemia). The more frequently you experience hyperglycemia, the more likely you’ll develop serious health risks such as:
- Nerve damage
- Heart disease
- Chronic kidney disease
- Oral health problems
- Hearing loss
- Vision loss
- Bladder issues
Types of Diabetes
For pregnant women, healthcare professionals separate diabetes into two different categories: pregestational diabetes and gestational diabetes.
Pregestational includes any preexisting diabetes conditions that develop before pregnancy. These include:
- Type 1 diabetes – A genetic and incurable condition; type 1 diabetes is technically an autoimmune reaction. It typically starts in childhood or adolescence, when the body mistakenly attacks and halts its own insulin production. About 5% to 10% of diabetes patients have type 1.
- Type 2 diabetes – A developed condition; type 2 diabetes is when the body loses its sensitivity to insulin over time. This condition arises due to a combination of genetics and lifestyle habits, like excess sugar intake and low activity levels. Type 2 diabetes is much more common—about 90% to 95% of diabetes patients have type 2. The condition is typically treated through diet and exercise.
If your wondering, what is gestational diabetes, it is when woman develops diabetes for the first time during pregnancy. Unfortunately, the condition can happen to any new mom—even if you’re active and in excellent health! Often, the condition results from hormones produced by the placenta, which can cause insulin resistance and lead to hyperglycemia (high blood sugar).
Gestational diabetes affects anywhere between 2% to 10% of expecting mothers, though it often resolves after pregnancy. Nevertheless, gestational diabetes can carry risks for maternal and child health, making it crucial to monitor up until and after childbirth.
How does pregnancy affect diabetes?
When you’re pregnant, shifting hormones and weight gain change both insulin production and sensitivity. This can exacerbate symptoms of diabetes or cause gestational diabetes onset.
For most women, insulin follows the following pattern during pregnancy:
- First trimester – Slightly elevated insulin sensitivity
- Second trimester – Slightly lowered insulin sensitivity and elevated insulin production
- Third trimester – Significantly lowered insulin sensitivity and insulin production compounds by 200%
With all these changes, pregnancy also affects the two main biomarkers physicians and diabetes patients use to monitor their condition:
- Blood glucose – Every day, in-treatment diabetics measure their blood glucose to assess their insulin needs. For your average non-pregnant person, a healthy blood glucose range is around 99 mg/dL or lower. When pregnant, the window for “normal” shifts up to 110 mg/dL or lower.
- A1C – A1C measures your blood glucose over the past several months. Here’s where A1C typically stands for the following conditions:
- Non-diabetics – 5.7% or lower
- Prediabetics – 5.8% to 5.4%
- Diabetics – 6.5% or higher
When you’re pregnant, your physician and OBGYN will aim to keep your A1C levels below 6.5% to reduce your and your baby’s health risks. If you can adhere to the treatment plan prescribed by your doctor, diabetic pregnant people can achieve those levels.
How can diabetes affect my baby?
Metabolic conditions like diabetes can interfere with an unborn baby’s physical development because they keep your blood glucose level chronically elevated. For some unborn babies, this leads them to become what’s known as infant of a diabetic mother, or IDM.
From fetus to adult life, IDMs could face a higher likelihood of:
- Birth and developmental defects
- Breathing difficulties or underdeveloped lungs
- High red blood cell levels
- Newborn jaundice
- Diabetes and obesity in childhood or adulthood
- A high birth weight, due to excess glucose passing into the baby’s placenta
- In severe cases, elevated risk of stillbirth or miscarriage
After a baby is born to a diabetic mother, they’re also at a higher risk of developing hypoglycemia. For this reason, nurses will monitor the baby’s blood sugar levels for the first 24 hours after birth.
Helping these babies maintain optimal blood sugar levels is also very important early on. To ensure their little ones are getting the nourishment they need, mothers with diabetes can work with lactation consultants to:
- Schedule regular feedings
- Assist with latching quickly and adequately
How can my diabetes affect mothers during pregnancy?
In general, pregnant women with type 1 or type 2 diabetes face poorer health outcomes following childbirth than gestational diabetes patients. However, pregnant women with any diabetic condition fall into a higher-risk category for the following:
- Hyperglycemia – Remember, the second and third trimester lowers insulin sensitivity and exaggerates insulin production—sometimes twofold. This is the perfect storm for creating hyperglycemic conditions in the body. If diabetes isn’t monitored and managed, pregnant women could damage their eye, kidney, and heart health.
- Preeclampsia – Preeclampsia occurs when a pregnant mom develops both high blood pressure and too much protein in their urine. This forces the mom to give birth immediately or face life-threatening consequences.
- Birth injury – Together, diabetes and pregnancy can make for high-weight babies, and exceptionally large babies can make delivery incredibly painful. Birth injuries and C-sections are more common for infants with diabetic mothers.
It’s also important to note that women diagnosed with gestational diabetes have a higher likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes later in life, as well as gestational diabetes in future pregnancies. If that’s the case for you, keeping up with annual checkups with your healthcare provider can help you stay informed about your health (and, if applicable, the health of any future little ones).
What to Know About Gestational Diabetes
Whether you know a relative with GD or want to be proactive about your family’s health, it’s normal to want to take control against gestational diabetes—particularly if you’ve never dealt with a chronic condition before. Fortunately, during diabetic pregnancies, healthcare providers perform more third-trimester ultrasounds and non-stress tests to ensure your baby is healthy in utero.
However, an important aspect of gestational diabetes to note is that some women don’t discover they have it until around the third trimester. This is because most pregnant women take a glucose screening as part of their prenatal care pregnancy program between 24 to 28 weeks. Additionally, there aren’t many signs associated with gestational diabetes to look out for. Most women who have it cite thirstiness and peeing more often—though those tend to occur in any pregnancy.What you can do is assess how likely you may be to develop gestational diabetes, and ask your doctor to test you earlier. You could be at increased risk of gestational diabetes if you:
- Are overweight or obese
- Lead a sedentary lifestyle
- Are over 25 years old
- Have prediabetes
- Have PCOS
- Have heart disease or high blood pressure
- Have had gestational diabetes before
- Are immediately related to a diabetic person
If you fall into a higher-risk category, you may want to talk with your doctor about preemptive methods of treatment—in other words, getting ahead of the condition by cultivating healthy practices early.
In doing so, you could also lower your risk of:
- Gestational diabetes in future pregnancies
- Type 2 diabetes post-pregnancy
- Perinatal or postpartum depression
How to Have a Healthy Pregnancy with Diabetes
Whether you’ve had type 1 diabetes since the fourth grade or just got your gestational diabetes diagnosis, yes—it can be scary bringing a healthy baby into the world when you have a high-risk health condition. However, adhering to these healthy practices can help ease stress and manage your diabetes:
- Visit your doctor regularly – First and foremost, you must let your doctor know if you plan to have a baby while diabetic. Healthcare professionals can tell you precisely what you need to do to protect your and your baby’s health. It’s best to aim for a minimum of 1 visit per month so your doctor can monitor your blood glucose level and how your baby is progressing.
- Prioritize a balanced lifestyle – A doctor-approved diet and exercise routine supports a pregnant body and helps keep symptoms of diabetes under control. If you’re not sure what to eat, it might be helpful to meet with a nutritionist trained in diabetes to help you come up with a workable meal plan. Generally, it’s recommended you start by limiting refined carbohydrates and fatty, high-sugar foods. As for exercise, the National Institute of Health recommends getting at least a half-hour of movement 5 days per week.
- Monitor your glucose and A1C levels – Keeping tabs on your A1C level and blood sugar level is a critical daily practice no matter what type of diabetes you have—you’ll need to monitor your blood sugar at home at least 4 times per day. Try your best to keep a consistent log so that you can share it with your doctor at appointments.While the majority of pregnant women are able to manage their gestational diabetes through diet and exercise, a small percentage of women will be prescribed insulin or another medication. People who had type 1 or type 2 diabetes before pregnancy will need to consult with their provider to determine any modifications to their care plan (and possibly, their existing insulin use).Remember, your prescriptions may change over the course of your pregnancy, so it’s important to keep up with the prenatal care plan your team has prescribed.
As any current mom will tell you, there’s never a “perfect” time to be a mother—there’s just your time. Even with a chronic health condition like diabetes, there are ways to stay proactive and bring your child safely into the world. All it takes is a little planning, a healthy dose of medical guidance, and a dash of love.
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SneakPeek’s Prenatal Wellness Tests were designed by medical experts to help expecting mothers stay on target with their prenatal well-being. Whether you want to know about the benefits of prenatal vitamins, or evaluate your vitamin D pregnancy levels, or see if your blood glucose levels are on target for a healthy pregnancy, SneakPeek’s Prenatal Vitamin D Test and Gestational Diabetes Test let you do it from the comfort of home. Your results are processed by CLIA-certified labs, reviewed by independent, board-certified physicians, with a full downloadable report sent to you within 3 to 6 business days. Keep an eye out as this test will be launching soon! In the meantime, we also have an at-home gender blood test available that allows you to discover your baby’s gender as early as 6 weeks into your pregnancy —that’s months before your gender reveal ultrasound!
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This post has been reviewed for accuracy by the following medical professional:
Katie Smith is a seasoned Certified Nurse Midwife and a nurturing mother to six children, offering a unique blend of professional expertise and personal experience. She is the founder of Birth Your Way Midwifery and Women’s Wellness Center in Bay County, Florida. Katie's comprehensive approach to care is informed by her hands-on experience in motherhood and her passion for empowering women through their birthing journey. Her dedication extends beyond her center as she actively engages in community wellness and family health education.
Sources:
- American Diabetes Association. Diabetes and Pregnancy. https://diabetes.org/diabetes/gestational-diabetes/diabetes-and-pregnancy
- CDC. All About Your A1C. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/managing-blood-sugar/a1c.html
- CDC. What is diabetes? https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/basics/diabetes.html
- Cleveland Clinic. Insulin: What Is It, How Do You Take It, Side Effects. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22601-insulin
- Joslin. Managing Diabetes During Pregnancy. https://www.joslin.org/patient-care/diabetes-education/diabetes-learning-center/managing-diabetes-during-pregnancy
- March of Dimes. Gestational diabetes. https://www.marchofdimes.org/find-support/topics/pregnancy/gestational-diabetes
- Mayo Clinic. Gestational diabetes – Symptoms and causes. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gestational-diabetes/symptoms-causes/syc-20355339
- MedlinePlus. Diabetes Complications. https://medlineplus.gov/diabetescomplications.html
- MedlinePlus. Infant of diabetic mother. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001597.htm
- Stanford Children’s Hospital. Infant of a Mother with Diabetes. https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=infant-of-diabetic-mother-90-P02354
- University of Rochester Medical Center. Diabetes During Pregnancy. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=90&ContentID=P02444
- National Institute of Health. Managing & Treating Gestational Diabetes. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/what-is-diabetes/gestational/management-treatment
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SneakPeek aims to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information to help our readers make informed decisions regarding their health before, during, and after pregnancy. This article was written based upon trusted scientific research studies and/or articles. Credible information sources for this article are cited and hyperlinked.
