What is gestational diabetes?
Pregnant women who have never had diabetes before but who have high blood sugar (glucose) levels during pregnancy are said to have gestational diabetes.
When the pancreas of a child or young adult produces little or no insulin we call this condition Type 1 diabetes (sometimes called juvenile onset, or insulin dependent diabetes). This is not the type of diabetes you would have. Unlike women with Type 1 diabetes, women with gestational diabetes have plenty of insulin. In fact, they usually have more insulin in their blood than women who are not pregnant. However, the effect of their insulin is partially blocked by a variety of other hormones made in the placenta, a condition often called insulin resistance.
The placenta performs the task of supplying your growing baby with nutrients and water from the mother's circulation. It also produces a variety of hormones vital to the preservation of the pregnancy. Ironically, several of these hormones have a blocking effect on insulin, a constra-int insulin effect.
This constraint insulin effect usually begins about midway (20 to 24 weeks) through pregnancy. The larger the placenta grows, the more these hormones are produced, and the greater the insulin resistance becomes.
In most women the pancreas is able to make additional insulin to overcome the insulin resistance. When the pancreas makes all the insulin it can and there still isn't enough to overcome the effect of the placenta's hormones, gestational diabetes results. If we could somehow remove all the placenta's hormones from the mother's blood, the condition would be remedied. This, in fact, usually happens following delivery.
Next Page - What is Insulin Resistance?
1.0 - What is Gestational Diabetes
In this first step you will learn the basics on exactly what gestational diabetes is, what is happening with your body and some of the possible reasons why you may have developed this disease.
