What is gestational diabetes?
Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes that first occurs during pregnancy. Like other types of diabetes, gestational diabetes is a condition in which your body produces inadequate amounts of the hormone insulin to control your blood sugar levels. This leads to high blood sugar that can cause adverse impacts on the health of your baby. In Singapore, up to one in five women are at risk of developing gestational diabetes.
The good news, however, is that this condition usually goes away after you give birth. But screening for diabetes should still be done after delivery as up to 40% may go on to develop pre- diabetes within 5 years after delivery.
It’s important to keep your blood sugar levels under control during your pregnancy to keep your baby healthy and prevent a difficult delivery. If left untreated, gestational diabetes can cause serious complications, including miscarriages, preterm labor, birth injury to baby, and hypertension in the mommy.
How
can you manage gestational diabetes?
Fortunately, there are relatively easy ways to manage this condition. Here are a few lifestyle habits you can adopt to ensure that your blood sugar levels are under control.
1. Maintain a healthy diet
Speak
to your doctor to determine a diet plan that’s catered to managing gestational
diabetes. Unfortunately, this means removing some of your favourite sugary
treats from your diet.
It’s important to ensure that you’ll be getting the essential nutrition that you need during pregnancy. A pregnant woman with gestational diabetes should ideally:
- Swap out sugary snacks such as candy and ice cream for natural sugars such as fruits and raisins
- 40-50% of your daily calories should be from carbohydrates such as rice or noodles and 25% from protein like fish or meat. At least half of these carbohydrates should be complex and rich in fiber.
- Limit your fat intake to less than 40% of your daily calories. Saturated fat like butter and deep fried foods should make up less than 10% of the fatty foods that you eat.
- Aim
to eat at least 20 to 35 grams of fiber daily. You can achieve this target by
eating foods such as whole-grain pasta, bread, cereal, brown rice, oatmeal,
fruits and vegetables.
2. Exercise regularly
Working out and exercising when you have gestational diabetes is safe as long as your doctor gives you the green light to do so. Your body uses more glucose during physical activity, which helps to lower your blood glucose levels and reduce insulin resistance. Staying active during your pregnancy also helps to relieve other issues such as aches and fatigue.
As a
general rule, aim to get at least 30 minutes of exercise several times a week.
You can start by introducing walking, running or swimming into your daily
routine. If you had a workout routine prior to your pregnancy, check with your
doctor whether you can keep it up or make some variations in the exercises.
There also many prenatal workouts available online for you to follow.
3. Check your blood sugar levels
Your
doctor is likely to recommend that you check your blood sugar levels seven times
a day, twice a week. You’ll be given a target range for your blood glucose
levels which you’ll need to check at home. You can purchase a blood glucose
measuring kit to keep track of this.
4. Medication
If the above measures don’t help to bring your blood sugar levels down, you may need to take medicine to manage your gestational diabetes. Medicines that are shown to be safe for pregnant women include insulin injections and metformin pills.
Conclusion
Gestational diabetes doesn’t always come with symptoms, so it’s crucial that you get yourself tested even if you feel otherwise healthy. If you do have gestational diabetes, seeking an opinion from a medical professional as soon as possible can help you to manage it effectively and prevent any unwanted complications.
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