Gestational Diabetes Diet
"Patient’s Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy provides some general guidelines for keeping yourself healthy and for promoting the best outcomes for your baby, if you have gestational diabetes. The booklet describes gestational diabetes, its causes, and its features and includes a general treatment plan to help control the condition."
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Gestational Diabetes Nutrition and Questions
"It is important to emphasize that NO standard gestational diabetes food plan is currently available. Every registered dietician you see will recommend something slightly different.
"Women with gestational diabetes are often given a plan as if it is 'The Ten Commandments' written in stone, and are shocked when they compare their plan with others' and see some of the differences. The similarities generally outweigh the differences, but the differences can be glaring.
"Remember that when you read this, you are seeing only a few possible versions of gestational diabetes food plans. Do not take this plan as a medical prescription; discuss your own individual needs with a Registered Dietician (see the section on Treatment and Care Issues for a discussion about dealing with Registered Dieticians). As we larger women well know, one size does not fit all, either in clothes or in food plans!"
Kmom
Gestational Diabetes Diet Plan
"Gestational (jes-ta-shun-ull) diabetes is when your blood sugar (glucose) is too high while you are pregnant. Gestational diabetes often goes away after the baby is born. But, you may get diabetes later if you have diabetes during pregnancy.
"You need to eat the right amount of carbohydrates, protein, and fat while you are pregnant. This requires more planning if you are taking insulin to control your blood sugar while you are pregnant."
Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center
Long-held prenatal beliefs challenged
"'An entire generation of obstetricians, almost two generations of obstetricians, have bought into the idea that screening for gestational diabetes is important and serves to improve pregnancy outcomes,' says Ohio State OB-GYN Mark Landon. But it's unclear whether treating mild cases, usually with diet, is beneficial, and some research suggests it could have drawbacks, such as an unnecessarily higher rate of C-sections. Landon leads an ongoing, government-sponsored study to determine the effectiveness of treating the condition."
USA Today
"Yes, pathologically high levels of blood sugar can cause problems for mother and babies. The blood sugar levels used to define gestational diabetes are not pathologically high. The placenta specifically produces hormones to raise a pregnant woman's blood sugar levels. Many birth professionals throughout the world recognize this as a normal and healthy aspect of pregnancy.
"Yes, a good diet and getting lots of exercise are good things for anybody, and especially for a pregnant woman.
"I am not arguing against eating well in pregnancy. I am arguing about mis-representing research on the subject. I am arguing against the erosion of self-confidence and the medical system's assertions that women with 'gestational diabetes' couldn't grow a healthy baby without them."
Gestational Diabetes Diet for the Prevention of Overgrowth of the Child
"We have learned that it is impossible to influence the size of the child through dieting the mother. Short of actual famine there is no effect from reduction or alteration of the food. The great hunger experience in Germany during the War blockade proved this. The babies were as large and as rosy as ever -- even when the mothers were half starved. Still some physicians believe it can be done." Joseph DeLee AM, MD, 'Obstetrics For Nurses' -- 1937.
"... research shows that restricting calories and carbohydrates will not make a statistical difference in size of the baby. Restriction of calories and carbs PLUS INSULIN 'will' make a difference, but only of about 4 to 8 ounces which is not likely to be 'obstetrically significant'.
"A diabetic woman needs careful monitoring -- including blood-checks after every meal -- because her bloodsugars will swing wildly and jump HIGH HIGH HIGH - -- probably well into the two hundreds. But the woman called 'gestatational diabetic' doesn't swing outside of the normal swing -- she has NORMAL bloodsugars for a pregnant woman -- yet the numbers are arbitrarily lowered BEYOND the normals (even normals for non-pregnancy) -- in order to 'control' a nonexistent problem!"
