Gestational Diabetes

Gestational Diabetes is usually diagnosed early in the third trimester of pregnancy.

Gestational diabetes, known as GDM, is diabetes that occurs during pregnancy. GDM typically occurs during the latter part of pregnancy. After delivery, blood glucose usually returns to normal, but any woman who develops GDM has an added risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.

In pregnancy, hormones produced by the placenta help your baby to develop, but they also affect your own insulin's ability to handle glucose. This is called insulin resistance. Most women who are pregnant are able to produce more insulin to compensate for this insulin resistance, but about 5 percent of women cannot do so. For these women, blood glucose begins to rise and gestational diabetes is diagnosed.

Risk Factors

It is true that women who are overweight are more at risk, but thin women develop gestational diabetes too, and many women who are overweight do not. Other risk factors for developing GDM include:

• a family history of diabetes
• being over 25 years old
• having previously delivered a large baby
• being of non-Caucasian heritage
• being pregnant with more than one fetus

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