Tips for controlling gestational diabetes

Gestational diabetes consists of a metabolic alteration of carbohydrates or alteration of glucose tolerance that is first diagnosed during pregnancy.Therefore, being a disease that arises during pregnancy, not only affects the mother, but also the baby.

This pathology can appear due to the bad adaptation of the regulatory mechanisms of carbohydrates in the mother.This occurs because “the hormones produced during pregnancy by the placenta block the activity of insulin, which is the substance responsible for regularizing glucose consumption,” says José María Fernández Moya, coordinator of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Service of the Nisa HospitalPardo de Aravaca, in Madrid.

To avoid suffering, both in mothers and in their future children, you have to go to the doctor to start a treatment plan and be able to control diabetes during pregnancy.It is very important to follow the advice of the medical professional and go to the consultations routinely.

A balanced diet is the key element to get diabetes to disappear.The feeding plan must be personalized for each patient and adapt to their needs.In no case is the weight loss recommended by following this type of diet, it is not about weight loss but to base nutrition on healthy foods.

It is best to consult with a nutritionist or educator in diabetes so that the pregnant can learn which foods to have to have the level of glucose under control.This dietary plan should not be hypocaloric or restrictive in carbohydrates, the consumption of fruits, pasta and rice is recommended, but products with refined sugar, proteins and fats are controlled.

The number of meals and daily calories have to be well distributed and fractionated to avoid hypoglycemia.

Another of the guidelines to be followed is to perform daily but moderate physical exercise, always according to medical indications.A daily ride or upper limb exercises and aerobic activities a couple of times a week are valid.This helps improve in the increase in insulin sensitivity and glucose consumption.

Finally, as an additional treatment is medication taking.Although this is not scheduled in all cases.Insulin turns out to be the most effective for diabetes, but it is not the same performance when you have during pregnancy.So medical instructions should always be met.

It is important to maintain these healthy guidelines during and after pregnancy.

Risk factors

There are some risk factors that can help identify and anticipate whether a woman can be gestational diabetic, which will help not only to avoid it but to know how to treat it:

- Background of relatives with first degree of diabetes.
- Having suffered diabetes or any other problem with glucose previously.
- Having suffered preeclampsia, polycystic ovary syndrome (SOP) or hypertension.
- Be an age between 25 and 30 years.
- Have a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25-30, depending on the gestation time, that is, to suffer overweight.
- Having a history of newborn with macrosomia, that is, the excessive size or development of the body.
- Background of the mother of low or high birth weight.
- Background of spontaneous abortion or mortality of the fetus at birth.

There can also some signals such as dizziness, blurred vision, fatigue, frequent infections, thirst feeling or weight loss, which are discovered in the routine screening to which pregnant women are subjected, as Fernández warns.Although this disease does not usually have concrete symptoms

Therefore it is essential to go toMedical consultation in the face of any questions to perform a test to detect the glucose level and, if the level of said blood sugar is high, proceed to do a glucose tolerance test.

Knowing the risks and causes of this disease should not be taken into account as an alarm factor, but it is necessary to know, not only the dangers they suppose for the mother, but especially for the fetus.

In the event that the mother does not control gestational diabetes, this could cause her: childbirth complications and need for caesarean section and, after pregnancy, the woman can suffer from preeclampsia or, after not having disappeared diabetes during pregnancy,This would result in type 2 diabetes.

However, the greatest threat falls on the child who has not yet been born and is brewing, causing excessive birth weight, causing problems when giving birth;greater probability of having overweight or obesity in the future, which, in turn, can cause type 2 diabetes;Respiratory problem and changes in blood sugar levels.

In addition, "if the mother has gestational diabetes, the child's risk of having some type of refractive defect, such as myopia, farsightedness or astigmatism, would be a 35," says Amina El Rubaidi, an ophthalmologist at the Nisa Pardo hospital.

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