While you are pregnant, your body needs to make greater amounts of insulin to breakdown the sugar (glucose) in your blood and change it into energy. Gestational diabetes is a condition where your pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin to keep up with the amount of glucose in your blood. This occurs in about 4% of pregnancies. The signs of gestational diabetes are very similar to pregnancy symptoms, therefore, your doctor will need to give you a glucose test to find out whether or not you have gestational diabetes. This test is usually given between your 24th and 28th week.

If you are diagnosed with gestational diabetes, your caregiver might choose to have you meet with a nutritionist who will help you control your blood sugar. You will also want to get plenty of exercise and test your glucose level each day. If you are unable to manage your diabetes with diet and exercise, you will need to use insulin injections.

Having gestational diabetes does create some dangers for you and your baby. This type of diabetes will typically disappear after giving birth. Your caregiver will continue to monitor your blood sugar levels after giving birth to ensure that your levels return to normal. From that point on you will have an increased risk of having diabetes in later pregnancies as well as type 2 diabetes later in life.

Glucose crosses the placenta and goes into your babys system. If you get gestational diabetes, your baby will also have an increased level of glucose. Your babys pancreas will generate greater amounts of insulin to assist in breaking down the extra sugar. Since the breakdown of glucose supplies energy, the higher level of glucose caused by diabetes will cause your baby to store the extra energy as fat. This could cause you to have a higher than normal birth weight baby which may require you to have a cesarean section.

After delivery, your baby may still be producing the extra insulin needed to breakdown the extra glucose collected from you. Since your child is no longer getting the extra glucose from you, he/she might end up with low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia. A blood sample will be taken from your babys heel to check the blood sugar level. If your babys glucose level is minimal, you ought to breast feed right away or give give the baby formula. Children whose mothers had gestational diabetes have greater chances of becoming obese or of getting diabetes in childhood or as an adult.