Ridiculous Daily Mail scare-story - so angry!

[Didntthinkiwasthisdisorganised]

Today on Daily Mail online:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072886/Sweet-toothed-mothers-risk-having-sugar-addict-babies.html

OMG. WHY is anyone allowed to write an article like this without full background medical knowledge? even the headline doesn't make sense with the story, it's about gestational diabetes really and the commenters show far more knowledge of the condition than is described in the article. This looks as if it's been written by a work-experience reporter - surely they have to be more responsible on medical subjects that affect people's health?

Thank god for this forum which is where I've managed to find the best and most realistic advice so far! Shame my husband doesn't read it and will point this story out to me tonight as he's actually trying to stop me eating any chocolate at all at the moment due to some scare story he heard at work.

Can anyone on here with any medical knowledge put the story right? I eat/crave sugary foods but eat lots of healthy ones as well, 22 weeks pregnant, not overweight OR diabetic, how much is that actually likely to affect my baby's birth weight if at all?

argh! ok rant over xx

No advice but Ive got a hellishly sweet tooth at the moment so Im doomed!

sugar IS addictive. It does matter what you eat in pregnancy (shrugs)

It's a bit of a non story to be honest, what is a 'huge amount of sugar'? Without quantification of that it's utterly meaningless. The whole thing is muddled and unclear. I'd just ignore it. A bit of chocolate in pregnancy isn't going to make your baby into a foaming-at-the-mouth addict.

The science reporting in most newspapers - including the supposedly 'quality' broadsheets - is pretty hit and miss, but the Mail has a particular agenda of this kind of general scare story with no solid facts. All the more reason not to read the Mail IMO...

'Ridiculous Daily Mail story'. Only one? How restrained of them! Of course living on a diet of pure sugar is bad, but eating some sweet foods within the context of a fairly balanced diet is no biggie.

AFAIK your most likely to give your child a very sweet tooth by feeding them too many of those pots of baby food (apple crumble etc jam packed with sugar) once their born. Same applies for the over-salty pots of baby food too.

Your partner can be responsible for ensuring that doesn't happen and focus on looking after during this pregnancy! Not quoting the Mail as though it were real news... ;)

Oh my word...

*you're
*they're

Can I blame my autocorrect for that??!

Well I craved sweet, sugary foods with my first pregnancy. I once cleared out Morrissons of sherbet fountains and ate loads of chocolate and cake. I'm not overweight (8st 6 pre-preg). No diabetes afaik, although I wasn't tested. DS was 10lb 4oz.

Second pregnancy, midwife warned that my sugary diet may have contributed to his size. So this time I ate healthily, obviously with a few sweet treats!! GD test was negative. Same pre-pregnancy weight. DD was 10lb 5oz!

I think baby size has far more to do with genetics than chocolate!!!

Cba to read anything in the daily mail, sorry.

I have a hideously sweet tooth, ate far amount of sweet stuff while pg with ds, got gestational diebetes, cut out all sugar, white carbs and saturated fat, ds normal birth - interestingly, has the least sweet tooth of any child I have known.

Before getting pg with dd, I again cut out all of the above, didn't get GD, dd has the most ridiculously sweet tooth and would live off chocolate given the choice.

Daily Fail hates women. All women. Fat, thin, pregnant, clever, stay at home, working... You name it, they hate it.

Step away from the paper

They are idiots. For the TRUTH about these ridiculous stories - the Mail aren't the only guilty party, misinterpreting health research for the sake of headlines - check them out on www.nhs.uk/News/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx. Proper analysis by proper researchers who know what they're talking about.

I have a family member who barely eats any sugar and is one of the skinniest ladies I've ever met and she still developed gestational diabetes... Bunch of idiots!

CuppaTeaJanice - if they tested your urine during your pregnancy, one of the things they'd have been testing for was sugar in your urine, the presence of which is one of the signs of diabetes. It's unlikely they'd do a glucose tolerance test or gd test if you didn't have sugar in your urine, though my gp did try to send me for a glucose tolerance test because of my weight, and I refused, as I'd not had a single positive test for glucose in my urine ever! If no-one tested your urine during pregnancy, that's bad, as it picks up the early warning signs of other things like pre-eclampsia.

What pissed me off about it was that the entire article said GD was down to sweet toothed mothers. Well anyone who knows anything about diabetes of any type knows that Mars bars aren't the only route to it. But the article never mentioned white bread, pastry etc etc.

They are indeed idiots.

I hid boxes of chocolate cakes in my car so DH wouldn't see them when I was pregnant I munched and munched and munched, still lost weight, didn't get GD and DS was just a sqeak over 5lb. I am a medical miracle :o

It's called the Daily Wail for a reason.....

SDT, they tested my urine at every midwife appt in both pregnancies, but I only had the GTT in the second pregnancy because my first baby was so big.

Does anyone know the real facts about this issue? I ask because I am a bit concerned.

My DS was a very big baby - 9 lb 15 oz. I had eaten a Mars bar a day in later stages of pregnancy (16 years ago, I was in my 20s with no friends with babies, had NO idea this could affect the baby badly, but of course now feel hideously guilty :( ...)

I remember bfeeding him in hospital, and a nurse doing a blood sugar heel prick as routine because he was so big. They said his blood sugar was low and that he needed either a top-up or a glucose drip, the idea of which made me recoil. So I gave him a top-up of formula, which I now realise I could have resisted, but was feeling vulnerable and worried, so gave into. But that's not my issue really. (In fact, I breast fed him for longer than I did his brother, who is skinny as a rake.)

16 years on he is much bulkier than his siblings, all of whom were 8 pounds something. (His entire frame is bigger though, so my DH tells me I am paranoid and he just is a broad shouldered big chap.) I have often wondered if I had gestational diabetes and they missed it (although I did have urine tests). Or was borderline.

He also has a v sweet tooth. I sometimes feel paranoid that I have given all this to him and made life harder for him. What I can't tell from this article or research whether they are talking only about diagnosed gestational diabetes.

I suppose my question is: was it me and my eating? Could he be a sugar addict? What do they MEAN by that?