Hi, thank you for your question. Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that develops during pregnancy and usually goes away after giving birth. It is more common in the second half of the pregnancy.

During pregnancy, there are excessive fetoplacental hormones which leads to a state of insulin resistance. There should be a compensatory increase in insulin secretion at this point. If there is insufficient secretion of insulin, the mother will develop gestational diabetes.

Any pregnant woman can develop gestational diabetes, but your risk is increased if your body mass index (BMI) is more than 30, you developed gestational diabetes in your previous pregnancy, you delivered a baby above 4.5 kg at birth previously, you have family members with diabetes, you are of chinese, south-east asian or middle eastern origin.

Gestational diabetes does not cause symptoms usually. Most gestational diabetes cases are discovered only when patients go for blood sugar level test during one of their antenatal appointment. This test is known as oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). A blood test is taken in the morning after the patient has fasted overnight.

Then, she is given a glucose drink and another blood test is taken after 2 hours to look at how her body reacts to the high amount of glucose. Gestational diabetes can lead to many problems, for example, polyhydramnios (too much fluid surrounding the baby in the womb), a large baby leading to difficulties during delivery, premature birth, stillbirth and pre-eclampsia (severe high blood pressure during pregnancy). Therefore, it is important that every pregnant woman is screened for gestational diabetes and given prompt treatment.

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