Gestational Diabetes and Its Influence on Development of Fetus
When a woman is diagnosed to have gestational diabetes her health and the health of her future baby is in danger. Gestational diabetes is a sort of a disease that doesn’t have any obvious and easily noticeable symptoms, but it may have a certain influence on the development of fetus.
Development of the disease causes increase of blood sugar level. And it refers not only to women, but to their babies as well. The fetus becomes exposed to higher glucose level too.
The thing is that glucose travels across placenta. And if its level is too high it can increase the level of glucose for the baby. When the fetus ‘feels’ such danger, its pancreas starts producing more insulin as a sort of defense. This in its turn works as a growth-stimulating factor, and a baby becomes too big for the gestational age that can cause delivery complications. Moreover after the birth, when the baby is not in the high glucose environment any more, it can get hypoglycemia (i.e. too high insulin level and too low glucose level in blood).
So, it becomes pretty obvious that gestational diabetes mellitus has a negative influence not just at the development of fetus, but at baby’s health after birth.
