There are no obvious signs or symptoms associated with gestational diabetes. The majority of instances are not identified until blood sugar levels are examined as part of the gestational diabetes screening process. During pregnancy, hormones like estrogen, cortisol, and human placental lactogen can interfere with the way insulin works. Insulin might not control your blood sugar levels as it should, which increases the risk of gestational diabetes. While it can occur at any point during pregnancy, the second or third trimester is when it occurs most frequently.
What are the symptoms to expect in gestational diabetes?
Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) often doesn’t show noticeable symptoms, which is why routine screening during pregnancy is crucial. Nonetheless, women with high-risk pregnancy could have symptoms like:
- Increased thirst: Constantly feeling thirsty, even after consuming liquids.
- Frequent urination: Urge to urinate more often than usual.
- Fatigue: Feeling more tired than usual, despite getting enough rest.
- Blurred vision: Experiencing blurred vision or other vision changes.
- Dryness of mouth.
- Increased hunger: Feeling hungrier than usual, even after eating.
- Delayed wound healing.
- Recurrent infections: Developing infections such as urinary tract infections or yeast infections more frequently.
Pregnancy problems and deliveries can require high-risk pregnancy care for women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), or diabetes that develops during pregnancy.
It’s important to note that these symptoms are not unique to gestational diabetes and can occur in normal pregnancies as well. That’s why screening for GDM is typically done between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy, regardless of symptoms, to ensure early detection, evaluation and management if present.
How doctors perceive signs of gestational diabetes?
The following symptoms could be warning indicators of gestational diabetes: increased thirst, weariness, hazy vision, frequent infections, and wounds that heal slowly. But in order to get a precise diagnosis, speaking with a medical expert is crucial. Many pregnant women do not experience any unusual symptoms or signs of gestational diabetes. This explains why we frequently fail to recognise gestational diabetes.
Gynaecologists usually perform a gestational diabetes blood test at the end of the second trimester which gives them information about the presence or absence of the condition. Test may have two parts:
- Glucose challenge test: You drink a sweet liquid. You’ll get a blood test to determine your blood sugar level in around an hour. Your healthcare professional will do a glucose tolerance test if your blood sugar level is elevated.
- Oral Glucose Tolerance test: An oral glucose tolerance test is only done if your challenge test results are unusual. You fast (avoid eating for eight hours) prior to the tolerance test. Your healthcare provider draws your blood before and at one-, two- and three-hour intervals after you drink a sweet liquid. Gestational diabetes diagnosis can be verified by the tolerance test. You are diagnosed with gestational diabetes if you have elevated blood glucose levels at any two or more blood test times, including fasting, one hour, two hours, or three hours.
- Ultrasonography: One reliable method for measuring foetal weight has been ultrasound for a long time. Understanding placental vascularization early in pregnancy allows three-dimensional Doppler ultrasonography to be utilised early in pregnancy to predict the likelihood of developing GDM.
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