The main way to treat diabetes in pregnant women is with a gestational diabetes diet. The goal is to provide the mother with enough calories and nutrients to sustain the pregnancy without causing increased sugar levels. Most women with this disease do not need hospitalization to manage their diet. This will be a quick overview on the treatment with nutrition.
Once the person is diagnosed, the goal is to maintain them on a 2000 to 2500 kilocalorie per day gestational diabetes diet. If a woman takes in 50 to 60 percent carbohydrates, she will become hyperglycemic after meals and gain weight. A study suggests that women who are obese with diabetes can be given 1700 kilocalories without any reduction in size of the fetus.
Blood sugar levels need to be monitored at home, and they should go in for doctor visits as well. They can see the doctor once a week at a minimum to monitor sugars to see how the gestational diabetes diet is working for them.
Once the gestational diabetes diet and the monitoring of glucose is established, the woman should have fasting glucose levels of less than 105 milligrams per deciliter. If this cannot be controlled then insulin is recommended. A doctor will prescribe this.
When all is said and done, the way to see whether any of this treatment worked is to see how the fetus has reacted. If the baby is large which is what high sugars in the mother will do, then treatment is not successful. The baby will be monitored by ultrasound throughout the course of the pregnancy to ensure its health.
Women who need the gestational diabetes diet need treatment to control their levels of sugar during the pregnancy because the high levels of sugar can have harmful effects on the fetus. The first recommended treatment is with diet alone which is meant to keep sugar levels down after a meal. There is a range of kilocalories to target, and the blood sugar level needs to be measured often. If this range cannot be obtained, and the blood sugar continues to rise, the mother needs to be given insulin.
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