Glucose Test During Pregnancy

Every mother wants a safe pregnancy. That's why regular check ups, tests, doctor consultations are sought for by pregnant women during each and every stage of pregnancy. These days glucose test, which is usually conducted between the twenty fourth and the twenty eighth week of pregnancy, has become a compulsory feature. The main reason behind this is the prevalence of gestational diabetes in about 2 to 7 percent of all pregnant women, which this test is designed to detect. Let us learn a bit about gestational diabetes first, followed by some useful information on this test.

Gestational Diabetes and Pregnancy

Gestational diabetes in most pregnant women is a temporary condition and once the woman delivers the baby, she no longer remains diabetic. However, there is always a risk for the woman to get diabetes again in some future pregnancy or some time later in life. So it is always useful to detect this condition as early as possible so that it can be kept under control. Here is how gestational diabetes occurs in a pregnant woman.

When a normal person eats food, the digestive system breaks it into glucose. The glucose then enters the bloodstream, and with the help from insulin, produced by pancreas, gives fuel to the cells of the body. This process alters in a pregnant woman, making the glucose stay in the blood, instead of shifting in the cells of the body. In a pregnant woman, there are a lot of hormonal changes that take place, making it almost impossible for the body to utilize insulin. The pancreas need to produce more than the normal amount of insulin in a pregnant woman, and if they are unable to do so, it might result in high glucose levels and gestational diabetes.

Glucose Test During Pregnancy

Glucose Challenge Screening Test
This test helps in evaluating how the body of the pregnant woman processes sugar. Before this test, no preparation is usually required. All a pregnant woman has to do is to drink glucose in the form of a sweet liquid. After one hour, blood samples of the woman are taken for analysis. If the results of this test are positive, the woman is recommended to go for Glucose Tolerance Test, to confirm that the pregnant woman is indeed suffering from gestational diabetes.

Glucose Tolerance Test
A pregnant woman is required to eat more than 150 mg carbohydrates, starting from three days preceding this test. This carbohydrate intake days are followed by fourteen hours of fasting, with a glucose test at the end of fasting. During the fasting, a pregnant woman can only take a few sips of water. Mornings are the ideal time for this test, as fasting during night is easy.

During the test, blood is drawn from the pregnant woman to test her "fasting blood glucose level". Thereafter, she is asked to drink glucose liquid. What follows is a 3-hour test, in which, every hour blood is drawn for testing, and this continues for three hours. The doctor then studies these four readings of blood glucose levels, and if two or more of these come out abnormal, treatment plan for gestational diabetes is recommended to the woman.

If the glucose test confirms gestational diabetes in a pregnant woman, doctors recommend a lot of dietary changes to the woman. A pregnant woman is asked to eat a well-balanced diet which is a good mix of fats, proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins and calories. Doing some pregnancy exercises for half an hour every day also helps. If these lifestyle changes are unable to control diabetes, she is given insulin shots as the last resort to control diabetes.