Many different issues can lead to a high-risk pregnancy, and gestational diabetes is one of the more common — it affects up to 9% of pregnancies each year in the United States. This number is an increase from 6% of pregnancies in 2016.
Given that gestational diabetes is on the rise and that November is National Diabetes Month, Dr. Fernando Otero and the team of obstetric experts at Women’s Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley feel it’s a good time to tackle gestational diabetes. As a leading contributor to high-risk pregnancies, here’s what we want you to know.
In very brief terms, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is diabetes that’s diagnosed during a pregnancy, and it can affect any woman. However, there are some risk factors for the pregnancy complication that we’ll get into in a minute.
While there’s still much that we don’t know about GDM, the leading evidence points to pregnancy hormones that interfere with insulin.
Insulin is a hormone that’s produced by your pancreas, and its main job is to regulate the levels of glucose in your blood. With GDM, hormones produced by your placenta can block insulin and lead to insulin resistance. As a result, you can have higher-than-normal levels of blood sugar, which is a potentially dangerous condition.
It’s worth noting that GDM often develops late in pregnancy and, in most cases, doesn’t lead to any issues with your unborn child’s development.
As we mentioned, any woman can get GDM, but some are more at risk, including women who:
GDM is also more prevalent in women who have previously given birth to a baby weighing more than nine pounds.
As you might imagine, if you develop GDM, your prenatal care is going to change, as we want to treat and monitor this condition.
We want to say up front that millions of women successfully navigate GDM, and we’re confident you can, too, with the right care and treatment plan. This plan might include one or more of the following:
We should point out that half of the women who develop GDM go on to develop Type 2 diabetes after their pregnancy, leaving them with a chronic condition. This doesn’t have to be the case if we successfully manage your GDM during your pregnancy and you continue with the healthy lifestyle changes you instituted during this time, such as exercise and improved diet.
The bottom line is that GDM will change how you navigate your pregnancy, but we’ll be with you every step of the way, overseeing your health and the health of your child.
If you have more questions about gestational diabetes, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our offices in McAllen or Edinburg, Texas.
