Diabetes and Pregnancy

Diabetes & PregnancyGestational Diabetes is often a temporary condition that affects about 135,000 women each year - that's 4% of all women that get pregnant. Gestational Diabetes is a situation that occurs in which women have a high blood glucose level during the later stages of pregnancy, even when they have never had Diabetes before. Usually, the Diabetes goes away after the pregnancy, but it may return later in life.

Causes

New information about a protein in the pancreas may help in efforts to determine how diabetes develops during pregnancy, say Stanford University Medical Center researchers.

Read the complete story at U.S. News & World Report. You can also have easy access to daily news on diabetes care, research and management by clicking on Diabetes in the News.

What are the risk factors for Diabetes?
Risk factors for Type 2 Diabetes include older age, obesity, family history of Diabetes, prior history of Gestational Diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance, physical inactivity, and race/ethnicity. African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, American Indians, and some Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are at particularly high risk for Type 2 Diabetes.

Risk factors are less well defined for Type 1 Diabetes than for Type 2 Diabetes, but autoimmune, genetic, and environmental factors are involved in developing this type of Diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes, which was previously called insulin-dependent Diabetes mellitus (IDDM) or juvenile-onset Diabetes, may account for 5% to 10% of all diagnosed cases of Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes, which was previously called non-insulin-dependent Diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) or adult-onset Diabetes, may account for about 90% to 95% of all diagnosed cases of Diabetes. Gestational is a type of Diabetes that only pregnant women get. If not treated, it can cause problems for mothers and babies.

If your doctor has just told you that you have gestational diabetes, you may not know how concerned you should be. On one hand, you know that diabetes is a serious condition, and that may worry you. On the other, you’ve been told that this type of diabetes goes away after you deliver your baby, so you may think that you don’t have to do anything about it.

What’s a myth and what’s a fact?

Exercise has many benefits for pregnant women. It helps to keep your pregnancy weight gain within a healthy level. It makes you feel better by releasing endorphins, “feel-good” chemicals in the brain. It also boosts energy, relieves backache, helps prevent constipation, and lets you sleep better.

Although researchers don't fully understand why some persons get Diabetes and others don't, it is clear that certain factors increase your risk. You are at risk for having Diabetes if:

• Your mother, father, sister, or brother has Diabetes;
• You are African American, Hispanic American/Latino, American Indian, Native Alaskan, Asian American, or Pacific Islander;
• You have high blood pressure (at or above 130/80);
• You have a history of Diabetes during pregnancy or gave birth to a baby weighing more than nine pounds at birth;