Gestational Diabetes - can you tell me about your experience and the advice you got?

[RandomCatGenerator]

Hello

I had the extended (2 hour) GTT today and the test results have already come through on the NHS app - very high, gestational diabetes diagnosis ‘confirmed’.

It does allow me to make sense of why I’ve been finding this pregnancy (my second viable pregnancy) such hard going - I am absolutely exhausted, very thirsty and constantly weeing, plus feeling a bit weak a lot of the time. But I feel very upset about it.

Consultant, midwife or nurse were supposed to call once test results came through but no word. They’re not great at proactively communicating things to be honest, I usually have to chase for any details or information on what tests mean.

So I wondered if you could give me your experiences? How did you find having GD, how did you manage it, what good (or bad) advice were you given?

thanks so much

I don’t know why I feel upset about it, or whether that’s reasonable.

Good rules to follow at least until you get a test kit and instructions so you can check your sugar levels:

• always pair a carb with a protein. Egg on toast, apple slices with peanut butter, crackers with cheese, pasta with beef ragu.

• go for complex carbs rather than simple so multigrain seeded bread instead of white bread.

• avoid root veg, try to go for green veg grown above ground, brocolli, asparagus, green beans

• high fat is good, low fat is bad. They add lots of sugar to low fat foods. Muller light yoghurt spiked my sugar levels insanely high.

If you look up low GI recipes you should get lots of good ideas. Remember you are not doing a keto diet, you should not eliminate carbs, you need to eat every food group, you just need to choose less processed carbs and add fat and protein to help your body break down the sugar.

Don't feel like you have to go on a salad and grilled chicken diet. You're not trying to lose weight, or deprive yourself. Yes you need to have balance so should aim for vegetables, oily fish, lean protein and all the 'good' healthy foods but there are also plenty of indulgent, treaty foods that are GD friendly

Steak and cheddar sandwich
Baked sweet potato with chilli and sour cream
Dippy egg with asparagus
Berries with dark chocolate ganache (dark chocolate melted and mixed with double cream)
Bacon, fried egg, fried mushrooms, baked beans and grilled tomato

So don't make yourself miserable denying yourself.

Having said that, there was a list of 'things I will eat as soon as I have this baby' made up partly of generally banned in pregnancy foods and GD unsuitable. I really enjoyed those meals.

Thank you so much both.

I don’t even know what a low GI or keto diet is - have always avoided complicated diets and just tried to eat healthily. Portion control has been my downfall living with active DH.

There’s an excellent support group on Facebook called Gestational Diabetes UK where you’ll be able to find lots of advice.

This is a handy fruit & veg guide

Hi op, I also had gd. I cried many many tears initially but tbh it all worked out fine. It helped me a lot knowing that it's to do with your placenta making you more insulin resistant rather than anything to do with your weight diet activity levels etc etc. So you didn't DO anything to give yourself gd.

I was able to manage my blood sugar levels by diet initially. It took a while to get my head around this especially because there isn't really a template diet as everyone's body will react differently. Some people could tolerate an apple for example whereas others couldn't. The most important thing for me was learning about carb/protein pairing and being organised with my diet. There will be a period of trial and error until you find what works for you and then I just more or less ate the same thing most days because I knew it worked for me.

I hate needles and I really struggled with the finger pricks so I did it on my wrist instead. It bruised and looked awful but i found it to be accurate enough and it was less painful for me.

I did have to go on insulin eventually because even though I was able to control my sugars during the day by diet, my overnight sugars went really high. Again this is purely how my body reacted to being asleep so I could do nothing about that. I had to do one injection before bed and it was actually fine. I found it easier and less painful to do it to myself, it's a very fine needle sort of like an epi pen and it helped if you do a different place on your thigh each time and pinch first.

I saw a diabetic midwife, diabetic nurse, consultant and diabetic specialist consultant. I had to record my sugars 7 times a day (I kept a food diary myself because it meant if there was an anomoly i could look back to see why) and emailed that record in weekly and they adjusted my insulin accordingly. I got extra monitoring at the diabetic clinic every 2-3 weeks but to be honest i really liked that it was an excuse to see baby because you're scanned at each appointment. I originally wanted a very natural water birth, this was accepted up until I needed to go on insulin and at that point they told me that was no longer on the table as I'd need additional monitoring in labour and would very likely be induced at 38 weeks.

I know lots of people who've had induction and really positive experiences, but it was something I didn't want, plus they kept talking about the risk of baby being bigger (even though he was tracking perfectly normally weight wise) and shoulder dystocia so I thought about it and then opted for an elected section which they accepted. I was first taken the morning of because I'd had to fast and reduce my insulin from the night before and it was absolutely the right decision for me personally because ds was a wee chunk at 9lbs 2oz and we'd been estimating around 6-7lbs.

As soon as your placenta is delivered you're no longer diabetic but you do need to get your bloods done to check for it at your 6 week pp appointment with the gp to make sure. Then you need to do this yearly because it does increase your chance of type 2 diabetes. Because of this I was really keen to try and breastfeed if able to (apparently it reduces your risk of developing it). And I harvested colostrum from about 35 weeks and kept it in the freezer in little syringes. When baby is born they need to check baby's blood after every feed and they need to feed I think it was 4hrly. This is because baby is used to producing extra insulin to counteract the extra sugar in your system that your body can't counteract, so they need to make sure baby's body realises fast enough that it doesn't need to do that any more. Ds latched fine initially but then got really sleepy (it's a big day being born to be fair) so I was basically told I needed to give expressed colostrum or formula because he was too sleepy to latch. Because I had the collected colostrum I was able to give him a little and then he came around (I think just needed the taste for it) and fed and I didn't need the formula.

It takes a while to get your head around it all but you will get the swing of it and then you'll be flying! It's basically just a really healthy diet I ended up losing 2 stone when pregnant between that and hg but made up for it with chocolate when he arrived! Good luck and honestly it's not as bad when you get a few weeks under your belt and you get into the swing. I felt like I had a great experience despite it.

@RandomCatGenerator Hi there. Congratulations on your pregnancy. It's such an exciting time!

Try not to worry. I know it's overwhelming to find out you have GD and you're brain goes into overdrive - I was the same.

The advice above is sound. The best advice IMO is always pairing carbs with protein and fat. Like pp has said, you should avoid low fat food items like the plague.

I managed my GD through diet and also Metformin. I was used to taking Metformin as I have PCOS. If you do need it, you may feel a bit sick at the start but it eases off (ask for slow release as you have less sicky feelings with it). You may be able to control through diet alone though.

I typically had one slice granary toast with smooth low sugar peanut butter for breakfast. If I was still hungry, I waited an hour or two then had another. For me, the key was spacing out meals as it gives time for your blood sugar to keep steady. It also helped me massively when I was hungry to know I could eat again in an hour or two! I drank a lot of water as I was thirsty all the time.

For lunch, I might have had lasagne with salad and full fat coleslaw or a cheese and tomato toast or with salad and coleslaw or one since granary toasted with two poached eggs.

Diner, I could tolerate small portion of potato with some form of meat and veg. Surprisingly, a chippy fish with a handful of chips was also fine so I had occasional treats! Also, if I was out and about and needed to eat on the go, I could tolerate chicken strips from McDonalds but no fries.

Evening time I would have had some full fat Greek yoghurt with blueberries or a few strawberries cut up. I also crumbled a rich tea biscuit into the yoghurt from time to time.

Lastly, I'm surprised I didn't turn into a cashew nut because I ate a lot of those (and the nature valley protein bars were also handy to keep in my handbag).

My pregnancy was absolutely fine and baby born healthy and I actually lost weight overall. My bloods were also fine after he was born but I still have to take Metformin for my PCOS.

It's been the only time in my life I've stuck to a "diet" because of how important it was (this was my second pregnancy at age 41, but first viable pregnancy and we had tried for years to get pregnant).

There is a really helpful FB group you can join for support and handy recipes and food ideas (I think it's called Gestational Diabetes UK, or something very similar).

You got this!

Oh BTW also just to say, always always eat your carbs. There's a temptation to avoid them because you know they will raise your sugar but the problem is that if you avoid them for a while and then have some, then you'll have an extra reaction to them and an even larger spike so it knocks everything off and takes a while to resolve so they'd consider that to be not well managed sugars. Avoiding carbs can also cause ketosis which is not good for the baby. So little and often with the right type of carbs paired with protein is better than no carbs at all.

ps. The above poster made a good point about induction .... with GD there is a very high chance that you will be told you will be induced early and you can choose to accept that or opt for ELCS. You also have the choice to decline both. I wish I had have declined. I opted for the induction and, if I had had a crystal ball, I could NOT have done that. I was adamant I didn't want a c-section and baby wasn't even measuring big so I could have just let nature take its course.

Induction can be fine for many people but for me that wasn't the case. I'll not go into detail (unless you want me to) but put simply, I was in living hell for 3 days. I'd recommend that when the time comes you make your own informed decision on your birthing plan.

This is all really really helpful advice but I just feel totally overwhelmed by it all. I’ve never tried to stick to any jive of restrictive diet before and it feels so complicated and overwhelming.

I’ve just been out for a gentle low key few hours with family and I’m in bed in floods of tears with exhaustion. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this for the next ten weeks I’m so so so tired

Yes the gestational diabetes UK Facebook page and website is brilliant.

Think of it as high fat, low sugar, low carb. You'll soon find a few meals that work for you. There are some suggestions on the website.

As soon as the baby arrives the diabetes will most likely completely disappear.

I felt much much better (more energy, less weeing) once I got on top of my.blood sugars. I had insulin injections which was grim (hate needles) but definitely made a difference. Try the new way of eating (not diet) for a week and see how you feel.