Medical doctors describe gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM as a form of hyperglycemia, Hyperglycemias according to them, results from an insulin supply that is inadequate to meet tissue demand for normal blood glucose regulation. It usually begins between
13 to 28 weeks of pregnancy. “Normally, says Dr Ejike Ogbuagwu, a family health consultant, the body releases a hormone called insulin to make sure that sugar in the blood is used up by the cells to turn into energy. Any excess sugar that isn’t needed is stored in that cell as fat. And during pregnancy, the hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone, cause an increase in insulin to have the same effect on blood sugar as it would have when a woman is not pregnant.
“It is grouped into two; non gestational and gestational mellitus. The non gestational diabetes is the diabetes which a woman has before she becomes pregnant while gestational mellitus occurs during pregnancy and goes after child birth . It occurs at the second parietal pregnancy as pregnancy is grouped into three, the generally revealed risk factor such as obesity, weight gain, increased age and poorly balanced diet are known to associate with type 2 diabetes.”
Gestational diabetes is not really different from normal diabetes just that it occurs during pregnancy. Other diabetic patients can be treated with tablet but in pregnancy- induced diabetes, only insulin therapy and diet are used to treat and monitor the mother and her baby till the birth of the child. It is proven that women who have GDM need to know that they and their children have an increase lifelong risk for developing type 2 diabetes. The risk doesn’t go away.
The symptoms of gestational diabetes are the same symptoms in normal diabetes these. Symptoms include, frequent urinating, passing large amount of urine and feeling tired but the difference between gestational and normal diabetes is that, the pregnant woman’s baby grows larger in the stomach than the normal month which most times leads to premature labour-giving birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy. It may also lead to the need for caesarean section by the pregnant woman during labour
The baby grows larger because he or she did not use the excess sugar so it’s stored as a fat in the baby’s body and make labour more difficult with an increased risk of shoulder dystocia .This means that the baby’s head can come out during labour but his or her shoulder becomes stuck behind his or her pelvic bone which results in the baby having injuries in his or her shoulder or arms, damage to the nerves in the baby’s neck or, very rarely, brain injury as a result of lack of oxygen.
The head of diabetes clinic, Maitama District Hospital, Abuja. Dr.Ibrahim Ameen, said once a woman discovers that she has GDM, the Endocrinologists work together with the obstetrician to monitor the pregnancy even after the birth of the child . He explained that the expert would still have to run some series of test to determine her health status and then place the woman on diet. He said, “If it’s not well managed, it kills, A diabetic patients do die of the illness not to talk of a pregnant woman, he said.”
Furthermore, he said by eating fresh fruits and vegetable, losing small amount of weight and making a healthy food choice, is a healthy way of preventing GDM.
He advised that continuous medical checkup if a woman has GDM during pregnancy and it still appears that she still have the disease after birth, will play an important role because the main focus of clinical care is on reducing the risk of diabetes. Family planning is important to reduce the occurrence of unplanned pregnancies in the presence of poorly controlled diabetes.
-Leadership
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