GD late in pregnancy??

[boymummys]

Bit of a back story. With my first who's now five, I had a lot of protein and sugar in my urine. No problems at all, and no reasons as to why is should be there?

I'm now 36.4 weeks pregnant and the last couple of times I've had my urine dipped there's been sugar and protein, never been a problem before ( kidney problems run in my family) so I'm assuming mine just don't work as well when I'm pregnant. Anyway, I've been put as high risk even though GD test came back fine at 28 weeks. I've been having growth scans, 32 weeks, 36 weeks and due another at 39 weeks. He's gone up on the centile from 30 to 50 in four weeks from scans.

Midwife's measurements have gone from 90th to above 95th.

At 32 week scan they said he was around 4.1 lbs and at 36 weeks scan they said he was 6.2 lbs. I've read up and that seems pretty normal for what's I've read? I've had midwife appointment today and she's booked me in another glucose test tomorrow morning, had anyone had it come back that you do infact have GD this late in pregnancy?

Hi OP.
I was diagnosed with GD at 36+6, im now 38+3 and im monitoring my bloods 4 times a day and on a GD diet.
I was also having growth scans and at my last scan at 36+3 the baby's tummy measurement had jumped up from 90th centile to 97th centile so i was booked the GD test for 3 days later. I was told that after 36weeks you just have fasting bloods fone and no need for the glucose drink.
But when i arrived at the appointment i was then told the glucose drink was used up until 37 weeks. I was 36+6 🙄
The hospital phoned me the next day and apologised and that the glucose drink shouldnt be used after 36 weeks but said my fasting bloods were fine but my bloods after the glucose drink were slightly elevated so i would be treated anyway and booked in at the diabetic clinic ( bloods should be below 7.8, mine were 8).
Sorry for the long post.

@Scoaf

Thank you for your reply, I've had the blood tests for them already that came back fine, seen my sister had GD and her daughters tummy was quite large but my baby isn't? He's just a big baby but normal tummy size,
Even the consultant said no extra care needed and was no cause For concerns, but midwife seems to think different.

Even suggested I went for an ecg, I asked her why she would think that's needed but agreed it wasn't? I'm so confused, it seems like it's being made a bigger deal then needs to be, he's already 2/5 engaged and I've had
A lot of cramping and loss of parts of my mucus plug, so I already think it won't be long till he's here

I've had sugar in my wee through this whole pregnancy. It correlates exactly with what I've eaten. My GTT was normal but my midwife was a bit concerned anyway and suggested i change my diet. You can still get kidney issues and problems processing sugars/carbs irrespective of GD. My diet was predominantly carbs tbh and i was craving (and eating!) a LOT of sugar. I cut out sugar and most of the carbs and massively upped my protein and fat intake. It basically removed the sugar cravings instantly so it seems i was lacking in protein!

Anyway my urine tests have all been clear since then, EXCEPT when i had reduced movements, ate some honey toast to try to get him moving, and ended up at the day assessment to get him monitored. My urine sample was chock full of sugar and the doctor ignored everything I said about already having this under control with diet, leaky kidneys etc and insisted there was no other explanation other than GD and put me on a 7 day blood glucose monitoring.

I found it quite stressful actually and was so annoyed at that doctor. The diabetes midwife called me on day 6 to say all my readings were perfect, i could stop testing and not to bother coming in for my follow up appointment!

Baby is measuring 69th percentile (6lbs at 35.5 weeks) but no one seems remotely concerned about that. His tummy measurement is fine.

I can't find much online but I've continued to reduce carbs and sugar (not cut out completely though) as i am still concerned that I'm not processing it well and my sister had a very large, premature baby even though she always tested negative for GD.

Correction- he measured 6lbs at the scan at 34.5 weeks, he'll be approx 6.5lbs at 35.5 weeks (now) i guess

@Bootiesandsocks that sounds awful!! I asked my midwife what other symptoms there was for GD and she said just sugar in urine and a excessive growth on the chart, but I've searched up and there's actually quite a lot of symptom's for it, symptoms I don't have, but her growth chart and baby's growth are completely different, even the consultant who was looking for any abnormalities in his growth scans said he was absolutely fine. I went to the Appointment this morning, I've just got home now from the tests, even the midwife's there couldn't understand why I was sent for it, as my first born was absolutely fine, no GD and I had sugar and protein in urine at every sample. They even sent me for kidney checks and bloods to make sure there ok after giving birth, they were fine so just pregnancy making them work a little harder and having a bit of a leaky kidney. Like I said he was measuring 4.1 at 32 weeks and 6.2 at 36 weeks Ives heard the grow on average half a pound each week not not excessive at all like it was made out to be yesterday.

Are they doing a week's blood glucose monitoring? Maybe it's a bit late, but I thought that's the only way of diagnosing it in late pregnancy as you can't do the GTT.

6.2lbs at 36 weeks sounds fine, especially if his tummy circumference is also within range.

I just don't think there's enough knowledge or information available about other reasons for sugars in urine so health professionals get overly fixated on gestational diabetes.

I would like to know why I have sugars in my urine and if it could be affecting the baby, but no one seems to know so I've just tried to improve my diet and hope for the best!

@Bootiesandsocks

No this is the thing, she's only seeing me every three weeks aswell. She said at 33 weeks if I have sugar in my urine next appointment (36+3) weeks she will send me for the glucose drink test, that's what I had done this morning. No other monitoring other then that.

Yes I agree that's the only reason I agreed to
This test today even after having bloods done that ruled out diabetes at 28 weeks, like I said this also happened with my first pregnancy and I have a very healthy happy five year old, so no effect that I know of to him.

I also read up that they normally don't do the drink test after 36 weeks and when I spoke to the other midwives doing the test this morning the couldn't understand why I was even there and let me know I could refuse the test, I took it anyway and waited in my car for two hours till I needed another blood test, just to find out or rule out if I have it

It's just so unhelpful isn't it! Great to know that your five year old is healthy even though you had the same thing with him. My mum had the same with my sister, she was 8lbs born at 38 weeks so not huge but not small. They made her do monthly glucose tolerance tests and it was always negative.

My sister also had sugars in her urine but didn't have diabetes, however my nephew really was very big when he was born at 36 weeks so I do think there could be something genetic going on with our kidneys and it's frustrating that gestational diabetes is all anyone can say.

Yes I completely agree, my mum brother and sister all suffer with extreme kidney infections, mum was that bad they ended up removing the kidney as it was to damaged. I have regular checks on mine and they seem fine for now, saying this though my sister did actually develop GD in her pregnancy but never had sugar in her urine at any appointment.

Have you been offered any kidney function tests? That's one of the first things they offered me, could be due to problems in the family, but one turned out to be larger then the other by quite abut while I was pregnant with my first so was picking up the slack from the other one but went back to normal once I had gave birth, our babies take a lot from us while we're pregnant, infact they pretty much take everything so I'm not surprised our body's are working overtime and struggling while there at it. My sister heard 4 hours after her appointment that she had GD and needed an appointment straight away, I've not heard anything as of yet, and they did say no news is good news. I can't give up cake this late in pregnancy haha

No news is definitely good news! I'd hope at this stage they'd get you on monitoring asap if you were positive for GD. You can't really wait a week...or three!

No they haven't offered any kidney tests or anything other than the GD tests for me. They don't seem to think there's any other possible reasons than GD.

Very strange!! My tests for kidneys came back fine so they even sent me for scans on them. But this was a different doctors and midwife's to the current pregnancy I'm with now. So could be down to that, but I'd still expect the same level of care if I was you, if your tests are coming back fine I would assume you would need some sort of kidney checks but then again, mine were all fine too so could just be our body's being put threw an insane amount of change that things like this happen and they need to realise it's not all down to GD. I'm glad they take it serious
But after so many negative tests it just seems pointless and a waste of money to continue to do these tests