Glucose tolerance test

During previous visit to my gynae, I'm ordered to do a glucose tolerance test to check whether I'm suffer from gestational diabetes.

Well, I optioned not to wait until next visit to Dr. Diva to take the glucose tolerance test. Hubby drove me to his clinic to get the blood test form and we went BPLab the next day for the test.

Let me get some explanation about the glucose tolerance test for the Internet:

Most healthcare practitioners routinely recommend a glucose screening test (also called a glucose challenge test or GCT) between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy to check for gestational diabetes, a high blood sugar condition that some women get during pregnancy.

What is gestational diabetes?

Gestational diabetes (or gestational diabetes mellitus, GDM) is a condition in which women without previously diagnosed diabetes exhibit high blood glucose levels during pregnancy (especially during third trimester). It is widely accepted as a disease only in the United States; there is some question whether the condition is natural during pregnancy. Gestational diabetes is caused when the body of a pregnant woman does not secrete enough insulin required during pregnancy, leading to increased blood sugar levels.

Gestational diabetes generally has few symptoms and it is most commonly diagnosed by screening during pregnancy. Diagnostic tests detect inappropriately high levels of glucose in blood samples. Gestational diabetes affects 3-10% of pregnancies, depending on the population studied, so may be a natural phenomenon.

As with diabetes mellitus in pregnancy in general, babies born to mothers with gestational diabetes are typically at increased risk of problems such as being large for gestational age (which may lead to delivery complications), low blood sugar, and jaundice. Gestational diabetes is a treatable condition and women who have adequate control of glucose levels can effectively decrease these risks.

Women with gestational diabetes are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (or, very rarely, latent autoimmune diabetes or Type 1) after pregnancy, as well as having a higher incidence of pre-eclampsia and Caesarean section; their offspring are prone to developing childhood obesity, with type 2 diabetes later in life. Most patients are treated only with diet modification and moderate exercise, but some take antidiabetic drugs, including insulin.

Women treated for gestational diabetes, generally have smaller birthweight babies, leading to other problems, such as survival rate of premature and early births, particularly male babies.

My report is out and I just got it from the lab.

Fasting blood glucose: 70 (Normal: < 100mg/dl)
1 hr PP blood glucose: 119 (Normal: < 200 mg/dl)
2 hr PP blood glucose: 61 (Normal: < 140 mg/dl)

Fasting urine glucose: Negative (Normal: Negative)
1 hr PP urine glucose: Negative (Normal: Negative)
2 hr PP urine glucose: Negative (Normal: Negative)

Haemoglobin (Hb): 12.4g/dl (M 12.5-17.5 F 11.5-15.5)

The report shows I'm not diagnosis with gestational diabetes!

The blood cord is out!

I almost forgot to blog about my 7th month check up. It fell on the date which marked my 7 month 1 week 2 days pregnant!

That's a good news to celebrate!

Everything's good - baby's blood cord no more around her neck and she had turned her lil head down for the time being. However, my weight shot up 4kg in 5 weeks time which my gynae was quite concern about - he kept telling me to control my diet! And since my father had diabetes, my weight shot up, and baby is a bit fat, I'm ordered to do a pregnancy diabetes test in the next visit! *Sigh*

Anyhow, hubby and I were at great joy knowing that the blood cord is out of baby's neck!