Women who are overjoyed to learn their pregnant won’t have thoughts of high blood sugar taking away any amount of shine from the moment. Most would scoff at the suggestion that the next 9 months may see them developing diabetes because of their pregnancy, and it is not something that you would be discussing with an expectant mother anyway. But gestational diabetes is a possibility for pregnant women, and the changes that occur in the body during pregnancy can make a woman’s blood glucose levels go up. We will talk more about that, but for starters how common is gestational diabetes?

The estimates are that the very most 1 in every 5 pregnant women (around 20%) will develop gestational diabetes, so the answer is that diabetes because of pregnancy doesn’t happen very often at all. But it is a possibility and the reason it happens is because carrying the baby means the body needs more insulin to be utilizing blood sugar properly for energy in cells. All sorts of hormonal changes start in the body too, and some of them that are increased signal for lowered insulin production by the body when it is still very much needed at the existing levels.

We have said all that needs to be said around how common is gestational diabetes, and most women will not have to take blood sugar control medications during their pregnancy. For those that do and end up taking them the good news is that gestational diabetes usually goes away after the woman has given birth. One risk now avoided, but here is where another one of them appears and what we’re talking about there is postpartum depression.

Treatment Priority

Caesarean section births are incredibly safe nowadays, and modern medicine is to be thanked for that. Most women won’t be very enthusiastic about having the scar though and a natural childbirth is always going to be preferable. Continuing with how common is gestational diabetes we want to remind any woman who is pregnant that gestational diabetes may mean your baby grows larger than it would otherwise. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it can make giving birth much more physically difficult and increase the chance that a C-section is required.

It is also important to know that gestational diabetes often doesn’t have any symptoms that would tip women off to having it. This is why it is smart to get tested for gestational diabetes between 24 and 28 weeks into your pregnancy. Here is another reason why you should try to catch this as early as possible and get on a blood sugar-lowering medication and do what is needed for maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. Around half of every woman who have gestational diabetes have it progress into Type 2 diabetes that lasts beyond their pregnancy.

The last thing we will say here in connection with how common is gestational diabetes is that the best way a woman can be proactive against iso to eat as healthily as possible during their first two trimesters, and to maintain moderate exercise levels over that time too.