Why does pregnancy cause high blood sugar?

When we eat food (food containing carbohydrates), it will be digested into "glucose". Glucose is the most basic energy unit that our body cells can use. Just like a car must add gasoline to move, glucose is the body's energy source. of fuel.

But when glucose wants to enter cells, it needs the help of insulin. Just like before adding gasoline, you must first open the filling hole. Insulin is the key to opening the filling hole.

During pregnancy, the expectant mother has an extra fetus in her body. For the nutrition of the fetus, the placenta produces some hormones, but these hormones will interfere with the action of insulin, causing the expectant mother's blood sugar to rise, which can provide more nutrients to the fetus. .

Why does pregnancy cause high blood sugar?

In expectant mothers with normal pancreatic islet function, they will produce relatively more insulin to cope with this situation; but some expectant mothers with poor pancreatic islet function cannot secrete enough insulin, resulting in elevated blood sugar levels and subsequent As the fetus grows and the placenta enlarges, the interference intensifies, and the blood sugar gradually rises. This is why the diabetes screening test is scheduled between 24 and 28 weeks, because the placenta in the early stages of pregnancy is smaller and has less interference, so it is not easy to It can be severe enough to cause blood sugar abnormalities.

After the baby is born, as soon as the placenta leaves the mother's body, the effect of interfering with insulin is immediately reduced, and the blood sugar will immediately return to normal values. However, there is still a high chance that you will get gestational diabetes again during your next pregnancy. As you get older in the future, you will also be a high-risk group for diabetes.

Therefore, if women are diagnosed with gestational diabetes during pregnancy, they should also strengthen life-related intervention in the future to prevent the occurrence of diabetes.

What are the symptoms of gestational diabetes?

Usually there are no symptoms; but if the blood sugar reaches a certain level, the same "three excesses" as ordinary diabetes will occur: eat more, drink more, and urinate more! However, as the belly of expectant mothers gets bigger, they seem to have more or less symptoms. These "three excesses" are sometimes difficult to distinguish from gestational diabetes!
So don’t think that you don’t have gestational diabetes just because you don’t have “three excesses”, or worry about having diabetes just because you have “three excesses”. Everything should be judged based on the test results.