By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
For many pregnant women, preparing for a new baby is an exciting time filled with planning and anticipation. As part of caring for both their own health and their baby’s, medical experts encourage women to take steps to prevent gestational diabetes, and, if diagnosed, to actively work on managing it.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), each year, 5 to 9 percent of pregnancies in the U.S. are impacted by gestational diabetes.
For Black women, the risks associated with the disease can be especially concerning. A Kaiser Permanente study of 77,666 women who gave birth between 1995 and 2009 found that Black women who develop gestational diabetes have a 52 percent higher risk of developing diabetes later compared with their White counterparts.
“During pregnancy, fluctuating blood sugar levels can cause fatigue, dehydration and frequent infections,” said Dr. Elizabeth Rubin, a physician and clinical advisor for Embers Recovery, an outpatient treatment center for addiction and mental health disorders. “For the baby, uncontrolled gestational diabetes can lead to macrosomia (excessive birth weight), which complicates delivery and increases the risk of birth injury. Other potential effects include low blood sugar after birth, respiratory distress and a higher lifetime risk of obesity and diabetes.”
Dr. Evan Nadler is co-founder of ProCare Consultants and ProCare TeleHealth, organizations that aid hospitals and clinics in creating and running weight-management programs for children and families both in person and online, respectively.
“New data show risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, and the impact on the fetus is often overlooked with all the care directed to the mother,” said Nadler.
A 2024 study by Deniece Feig, a professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Toronto, and her colleagues, found that exposure to diabetes from the mother as the fetus is developing in the womb is linked to the increased risk in developing attention-deficit and hyper-activity disorder, autism and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
The specific cause of gestational diabetes is unclear, and there is much doctors do not know about it, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA). The placenta’s hormones, which help the baby grow, can, at times, block the mother’s insulin, causing insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance puts pressure on the mother’s body to produce more insulin in order to reduce the amount of glucose (sugar) in her blood. If it cannot create enough, then she will have higher blood sugar levels.
A 2018 study that looked at paternal age for 40,529, 905 live births between 2007 and 2016 in the United States found that women who conceived children with “fathers older than 45 years had a 28 percent increased odds of a pregnancy complicated by gestational diabetes” when compared to women who conceived children with men between the ages of 25 and 34.
Gestational diabetes can be diagnosed in women who do not already have diabetes. Often, no symptoms occur alongside the disease, and testing is required to know for sure if a woman has it. If symptoms do show, they are typically mild, appearing as having to urinate more often or being more dehydrated than normal.
Testing can include glucose screening, which measures a person’s blood sugar at the time of the test, and glucose tolerance, which measures an individual’s blood sugar levels before and after they drink something that contains glucose.
Gestational diabetes typically occurs around week 24 of pregnancy. Doctors typically test expecting mothers between week 24 and week 28. If an individual is at higher risk for diabetes, the doctor may order the test earlier.
If an individual’s blood sugar is higher than usual early in pregnancy, they may not have gestational diabetes, but Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes instead. This is why it’s important to keep up with prenatal appointments and get the necessary testing done.
It’s important to note that just because a woman is diagnosed with gestational diabetes, it does not mean she had it before or will have it after the pregnancy. According to the ADA, the crucial factor is to be consistent and persistent in managing the condition.
The disease is treatable with the help of an individual’s health care provider. Treatment for the disease can include specialized meal plans, scheduled physical activity, regular blood sugar testing, and insulin injections.
“The cornerstone of treatment is dietary modifications like eating balanced meals with consistent carbohydrate intake, high fiber, and lean proteins,” said Rubin. “Women are encouraged to eat smaller, frequent meals, avoid refined sugars, and pair carbohydrates with protein or fat to slow glucose absorption.”
Women diagnosed with gestational diabetes can have a smooth pregnancy and a healthy baby if they catch it in time and get the guidance they need to manage it.