Almost one in ten pregnant women suffers from diabetes during pregnancy. Know when and how it can be diagnosed and the proper diet to control it and avoid its complications for the mother and baby.
Glucose is the main energy source for the body. During the digestion process, the ingested food glucose is released and passes into the blood to be distributed throughout the body.
In order for the cells of the different organs and tissues to take up this circulating sugar, the presence of insulin is necessary, a hormone released by the beta cells of the pancreas that is tightly regulated by the levels of glucose in the blood or blood glucose.
Diabetes is a disease characterized by an abnormally high presence of blood sugar. These high levels may be the consequence of a deficiency in insulin production or of a malfunction of the process carried out by it. Depending on its cause, two types of diabetes can be distinguished:
Type I, juvenile, or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
This type of diabetes, generally of autoimmune origin, is characterized by very low levels or even the absence of insulin production and usually appears in childhood or in young adults. It requires the administration of insulin for life.
Type II or adult diabetes mellitus
The cells of individuals with type II diabetes are resistant to insulin. This type of diabetes occurs commonly in adult individuals. Certain situations are a major risk factor in the disease’s onset: obesity, certain inherited diseases ( Down syndrome, porphyria, Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome or hemochromatosis ), and some endocrine disorders and polycystic ovary syndrome, which lead to imbalances that can lead to insulin resistance.
Gestational diabetes
Gestational diabetes is normally included within type II diabetes mellitus. It is usually diagnosed for the first time, around 24-28 weeks of gestation, and it occurs in 3-10% of pregnant women.
Here we explain why its appearance is due, its possible consequences for the pregnant woman, the development of the pregnancy and the future baby, and how you can control it through diet.
Causes of gestational diabetes
To understand why gestational diabetes occurs, one must know that the fetus’s development in the mother’s body involves a significant expenditure of energy; To meet this demand, the body needs to modify the amount and way of assimilation of glucose, among other mechanisms. During the first two trimesters of gestation, all the fetus’s structures are basically outlined; there is no elevated growth of the fetus or placenta.
In this stage, the mother’s body is metabolically prepared to constitute the energy reserve that supports subsequent fetal growth. Your food intake will increase, which contributes to the generation of a fat store; on the other hand, high insulin levels can be seen (hyperinsulinemia), and maternal tissues present an adequate response to it.
In the third trimester, the fetus will begin to grow rapidly at the expense of maternal reserves. Glucose will be one of the compounds required in large quantities (the fetus will consume up to 50% of the mother’s glucose); To facilitate this contribution to the baby, the mother’s tissues will express certain levels of insulin resistance so that the levels of sugar in the blood (and, therefore, available to the fetus) will be higher.Â
In these insulin-resistant circumstances, the pregnant woman is susceptible to developing gestational diabetes. In most cases, the alteration has the characteristics of type II diabetes (non-autoimmune origin), and only a small percentage of the population has pregestational diabetes (that is diagnosed before pregnancy).
Risk factors for gestational diabetes
Certain circumstances concerning the health and physical condition of women, before and during pregnancy, can pose important risk factors in the appearance of this pathology, among them:
- Pregnancies in women older than 30 years.
- Women with a family history of diabetes or gestational diabetes.
- Presence of overweight before pregnancy.
- First child with a birth weight greater than 4 kg or with a congenital defect.
- Women with a history of miscarriage or stillbirth (pregnancy in which the fetus dies at the time of delivery or in the second half of pregnancy).
- Excess amniotic fluid.
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- Fetal macrosomia.
