Just been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes - worried

[Crunchymum]

Anyone else in the same boat?

I know they'll take good care of us and I know knowledge is power but I am scared.

Lots of info about the risks has been given all at once.... stillbirth risk increases, baby could be poorly after birth, I'm 50% more likely to develop type 2 Diabetes......

I'm also now high risk, will likely deliver before term and cannot use this birthing centre.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed.

My cousin developed gestational diabetes. She received help from her consultant and dietician and became very disciplined with her nutrition. She lost lots of weight and delivered a 7.5 pound baby naturally at term. So don't despair just yet.

Try not to worry. You know - and that's a hundred times better than not knowing. The vast majority of people with GD have perfectly healthy babies. You will be given help with the diet and testing etc and you'll get extra monitoring which is reassuring.

The worst thing is that the diet is pretty boring. Try to think about things you CAN eat rather than things you can't eat. Look for creative recipes - e.g. BBC good food's cauliflower crust pizza or fathead pizza.

And remember that this isn't your fault. Your placenta is being a dick! It's hormonal and that means sometimes you'll get weird readings and some foods that should work don't and vice versa - e.g. they will tell you to eat whole grain rice. I couldn't tolerate even whole grain rice at all, but a bit of pasta was fine. You'll also have some trial and error as you work out what you can tolerate, and that's normal too.

I had GD with my DD and I was devastated. But actually it meant I ate v healthily and only gained 15lbs in the whole pregnancy - I had lost it all by the end of her first week! She was fine; her blood sugars were always normal and she only weighed 7lbs 4.

It is a massive wake up call though; it basically means that your baseline insulin response isn't what it might be, so you will have to be careful. I know I'm on the road to T2 now but it's my own fault for being overweight and inactive and not changing that in the 2 years since she was born :(

I had it. Well i had a test over. Then i never went over bloof sugar targets again. I remained under a consultant and my son is nearly 2 with no effects at all (he weighed 7 lb my largest baby but about average).

Follow the diet. When you have energy get exercise of a sensible sort (swimming worked for me). On the potential pkus side there's no major need to curtail fats when pregnant so you have some food groups not restricted. I found it fairly easy to do by replacing sweet things with higher protein things and I didn't feel I was missing out much. But i did have a bar of chocolate the day after my son was born.

Look up Gestational Diabetes UK on FB, it's a great group - really helpful advice and loads of people in the same boat

Healthy baby here, I was induced as they were worried. But she's fine. I stayed diet controlled throughout and was home in under 24h. I also lost weight during the pregnancy so I'm healthier now!

Remember the risks to the baby are based on unmanaged GD, not GD where you are managing your blood sugar well with diet or medication.

If you are able to manage it with diet only then the latest NICE guidance is that you should be allowed to go to 40 weeks (actually slightly over, iirc) before being induced.

Not being able to use the birthing centre sucks but tbh there are so many reasons why you might not have been able to anyway.

I agree with PP that it means you need to watch your diet post pg and particularly your refined/high GI carbs and sugar. GD has actually done me a favour as I have reduced high GI carbs (not nearly as much as when I had GD but somewhat) and feel and look a lot better for it.

I have actually made some changes that are for life without even really noticing - and at the time i thought I could never do it! I have only had one pizza this year; I don't have rice at all; if we have a curry I have fish tikka or paneer tikka rather than a sugary sauce; I never have sandwiches or toast; and I eat more vegetables and hardly any fruit. These things sort of happen and you don't even really notice, honestly.

I had it with my first (now pregnant with the second and my latest test has come back negative for GD). It is a pain in the sense that you can't do the "pregnant in a movie"-style ice-cream blowouts and I did find my diet limiting (to be honest I ended up eating the same things most days as I knew my sugars would be OK with those foods) but I never panicked about the stats as I was always reassured that I was doing well.

It still makes me think twice before eating something that's not so healthy and I won't eat now unless I'm actually hungry, so I try and look at it as a positive thing that happened to me as even though my diet was what I'd consider normal I definitely eat better now. DD was also fine at birth (I was allowed to go to full term in the end and was induced on my due date) so that's the main thing - she was 50% percentile. No, I didn't get to give birth in water to the sound of whale song as I'd imagined but really, who cares?!

Thanks for all the words of wisdom.

I think it's because it's a very new diagnosis I'm a bit freaked out.

I definitely need to take better care of myself (was overweight before this pregnancy and not in the best mind frame about my body) so maybe this can be a wake up call?

I was diagnosed on one number (middle blood test of the 3) being 0.2 above the range and my MW wasn't even sure if they would want to see me? Suddenly I was hauled in to a 3 hour clinic [called at 9am and had to be in for 11am] and overloaded with not very positive info.

It's my 3rd DC and I've had one very medicalised birth and one very natural. I have been reassured that even on labour ward I can still do things quite 'naturally' but I was told that with my first and ended up basically strapped the bed for monitoring? Oh well it's number 3, maybe she'll just pop out?

I actually lost a few stone using a low GI some years ago, so I'm quite familiar with the concept and have a few recipes up my sleeve.

I feel a bit better today, first set of readings have been fine.