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Essay on Gestational Diabetes

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Along with all the worries and complications a woman might face while pregnant, one of the more serious conditions is gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes occurs in 4% of all pregnancies (Seibel, 2009). Many women are not informed about the disease, some may not know that they need to be tested, and others may have heard about it, but want more information on what may cause it and/or how to prevent and treat it. Either way this disease needs to be taken seriously by every pregnant woman or woman planning to get pregnant to protect not only herself but the unborn child. Gestational diabetes is a disorder characterized by impaired ability to metabolize carbohydrates, usually caused by a deficiency of insulin resistance, occurring in …show more content…

During a pregnancy these increased hormones are made by the placenta, which is helping move nutrients from the mother to the baby, and also making hormones to prevent the mother from developing low blood sugar by stopping the actions of insulin (Seibel, 2009).” A pregnant woman’s pancreas is usually able to produce more insulin to overcome the effect of the pregnancy hormones; however, if for some reason a women’s pancreas cannot make up the difference the blood sugar levels will rise and gestational diabetes will occur.(Seibel, 2009) Many women may be having the signs and symptoms of gestational diabetes and not know it nor know how harmful it can be to themselves or the unborn child. Some symptoms may include; blurred vision, fatigue, frequent infections, increased thirst, increased urination, nausea and vomiting, and weight loss in spite of increase appetite (Gutierrez, 2007). Having gestational diabetes can also cause harm to the unborn baby, the most common result is an increased birth weight that exceeds nine pounds (Gutierrez, 2009). In most cases not every woman that has gestational diabetes will have any of these symptoms but should be given an oral glucose tolerance test between the 24th and 28th week of pregnancy (Seibel, 2009). Almost every doctor in this day in age will have pregnant patients take this test regardless if the patient is having symptoms or not. The test that is given to each woman

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