Gestational Diabetes for the chocoholic...

When I found out I had GD (Gestational Diabetes) I was really upset. I felt as though I had already done very well by not smoking, drinking and not gaining much weight so to be told I also had to cut out sugar from my (decaf) tea & lay off the chocolate until at least the baby was here was devastating.

I was also worried that this may have been Type 2 diabetes which was not picked up until pregnancy and that terrified me.

Throughout my pregnancy I had craved sweet things, cake, chocolate, sweets, fruit but I had been really good at not binging or eating to excess as I was aware I was obese when becoming pregnant so really could not afford to put on a lot of weight.

It was this point that all of a sudden it was made clear I was to have a lot of intervention both before baby was born, during the birth & after. I was told I had to have scans every 3 weeks to determine the size and that if they felt baby was too big they would either induce me or remove baby by c-section 2 weeks before my due date. I was told I was not allowed a home birth (I had not asked for one but they felt they needed to tell me anyway) and I needed to see my midwife every other week, my diabetes midwife & diabetes team every other week too so I was having weekly check ups from 28 weeks.

I had a monitor to measure my Blood Sugar Levels before breakfast and after my main meal everyday.

I was overwhelmed by all the extra check-ups and monitoring. I felt stressed out and began to worry about the birth even more.

I did some googling about gestational diabetes and found out that my glucose readings were not as bad as I had thought. My fasting test was perfect and it was the one taken after I had been given the glucose drink that was raised but if I was not pregnant this would have been called IGT (Impaired Glucose Tolerence) not Type 2 Diabetes. IGT is actually quite common in pregnancy but we do not know how common as only people with a history of diabetes in immediate family or are obese are routinely given OGTT (Oral Glucose Tolerence Test) when pregnant. Just to clarify IGT is also called GD when pregnant. This comforted me some what.

The next shock came when I was told I was not allowed to have the birthing pool in labour as I was to be continuously monitored because of my diabetes. I was again very upset as I have always found water to be very good a relieving pain. My birth plan then changed to ''skin-to-skin contact desired after the birth & husband to cut the cord'' I was advised not to put anything else on there as we did not know whether baby would be delivered vaginally or by Cesarean and would probably involve an induction. I was not told at all I had a choice which now I realise should have been made clear.

My pregnancy progressed and baby apparently was getting fatter & fatter. They did not feel she had to be delivered by c-section but a scan that took place 5 days before my due date estimated baby would be over 8lb which they felt was large for my 5 ft frame. So I was told I was to be induced the day before my due date...

I will not go into my birth story as that is another blog completely BUT my daughter was born weighing 6lb 12oz...hardly a big baby eh?

I now so wished I had researched GD more, the form I had was an unnecessary label, my body was finding it hard to deal with the sugar because I was pregnant and your body automatically reduces the amount of insulin you make so the baby can get the sugar too. In this instance, my baby was NOT getting too much sugar so therefore did not grow to the abnormally large size the HCP's estimated.

Had the midwives and consultants been more educated in such matters, they would have realised that my Blood Sugar Levels were being kept under control so therefore the risk was nowhere near as high as someone with actual Gestational Diabetes where a their blood sugar levels were either above 7.0 mmol/l when fasting or 11.1 mmol/l 2 hours after the OGTT.

Having said all that, due to the GD I did watch what I ate and when I weighed myself a week after giving birth I was 9lb lighter than when I fell pregnant so maybe laying off the chocolate was actually a good thing.

The point I feel needs to be made is that women should be treated on an individual basis when receiving their care rather than being labelled and made to worry more about things that probably won't even happen, women should also know they do have a choice :) x