Preventing Gestational Diabetes

If you already have diabetes or if you are obese, you’re likely to develop gestational diabetes too. But even women with no history of diabetes sometimes find that they get a sudden resistance to insulin and a glucose intolerance brought on by pregnancy hormones. For some women, pregnancy diabetes turns into type-2 diabetes after the pregnancy, and for some women, their diabetes completely disappear.

Here are some things you can do to reduce your risk of developing gestational diabetes:

1. If you know you are at risk for developing diabetes, keep a close check on your blood glucose levels.

2. Take folic acid supplements while trying to conceive and during your pregnancy. Basically, from the day you decide to go off Yasmin until the day you deliver, you should be taking folic acid.

3. Stick to a 2,000-2,500 calorie daily diet, at most. Pregnant women need to eat about 300 calories more than they ordinarily do, and not more than that, though some women exceed that by hundreds more calories.

4. Don’t gain too much weight. In fact, if you are at risk for pregnancy diabetes, you’ll want to gain only about 20-25 pounds, or less if you are obese to begin with.

5. Eat small meals every three hours, including protein at every meal.

6. Skip simple carbohydrates, especially refined sugars. You don’t need it weight-wise and it can wreak havoc on glucose levels if you run a diabetes risk.

7. Exercise!

8. After the pregnancy, lose the weight! Buy diet pills in advance at your online drugstore so that you can start taking them right away (unless you’re nursing).

9. See a doctor regularly for monitoring. She may suggest that you take anti-diabetes medication (probably after the pregnancy) and can help prescribe a healthy diet for you to follow, both before and after the baby is born.

By: Karen Benton

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This article was written by Dr. Karen Benton, an OBGYN and nutritionist who specializes in pregnancy and weight loss.