Gestational Diabetes Explained

Dr. Kim Pugh describes what gestational diabetes is and how it can cause pregnancy complications.

This is basically a condition where people develop diabetes because of pregnancy. Pretty much all the same symptoms. It typically is caught earlier so sometimes people won’t have some of the issues as far as the urinary frequency, blurry vision that type of thing. Probably four to seven percent of all pregnancies are complicated by gestational diabetes and again, that diagnosis is made based on a blood sugar, which is obtain on screening test and as either one hour on glucose tolerance test or a three hour glucose tolerance test. And its very common and it really is a tip off that long-term, these ladies may develop type two diabetes. In fact we know that 50% of women with gestational diabetes will have type two diabetes within five years. Well, it can certainly you know, abortions, congenital defects, are all more common in women who have diabetes. Now with gestational diabetes, the highest risk is because the mother has high blood sugar, guess what? That makes a big baby and those big babies are sometimes hard to deliver. So what you’re trying to avoid is babies that are huge and require C-sections. We know that if a diabetic woman goes into pregnancy with poorly controlled diabetes there’s much higher incidence of congenital defects and trouble with the pregnancy.