Women with diabetes now have better chances of having a successful pregnancy. However, there are a few important things that they have to consider before, during, and after pregnancy in order to ensure the health of both the mother and the baby. If you are planning to become pregnant, one of the most important things that you must do is to monitor your blood glucose level tightly 3 months before the planned pregnancy and aim for an almost normal level. This is very important so that your body would be prepared for the pregnancy, but most of all, because high blood glucose levels during the first trimester of your pregnancy could cause birth defects in your baby or even miscarriage. It is highly recommended that you consult your doctor way before your planned pregnancy so that he can give you the proper guidelines and program to follow for a successful and safe pregnancy.

Since monitoring your blood glucose level and maintaining it to an acceptable level is of utmost importance, you must put a lot of effort into this. One of the things that you have to do is to develop a special diet that will help you maintain a healthy sugar level. This is usually done with the help of your doctor. Another is to continually self-monitor your sugar level and this should be done 6-8 times a day. Lastly, in order to control your sugar level, use insulin injections instead of oral medications as the effects of oral medications on the baby are still unknown.

Once you’ve become pregnant, it becomes more critical as the baby is now growing inside you. Therefore, the things that you’ve been doing before the pregnancy must still continually be practiced and strictly followed. Ideal gain weight during the pregnancy varies and must be consulted with your doctor, but for a person with a normal weight to start with, 25-35 pounds of gain weight is considered to be ideal.

There are also times that a non-diabetic pregnant woman develops diabetes midway through the pregnancy. This is called gestational diabetes and it happens to 3-5% of pregnant women. Since it occurs midway during pregnancy, birth defects are not as much of a problem as formation of organs occurs during the first 3 months of pregnancy. Still, it could be very dangerous as it could result to the death of the baby. Thus, the precautions done by the women who are diabetic even before the pregnancy must also be strictly implemented in this case specially when it comes to controlling the blood sugar level.

Another complication that may occur during a diabetic pregnancy is having a very large baby. During pregnancy, there’s a lot of interaction happening between the mother and the child. As the mother nourishes the baby, a very high glucose level in the blood received by the baby could cause the baby to become very large. This is due to the inability of the natural insulin in the baby’s body to convert the excess glucose into energy and it becomes converted into fats instead. Thus, you have a very fat baby. This could lead to a more complicated delivery, often needing a cesarean section. After the baby has been delivered, he/she still has to be monitored closely for changes in the blood sugar level.

Women who develop gestational diabetes often lose it after the delivery. However, there are some who retain it and develop type 2 diabetes. Women who developed gestational diabetes must be tested every year for type 2 diabetes as a precautionary measure. Extra large babies also tend to develop obesity and type 2 diabetes later on in their lives. Although this could not be prevented altogether, living a healthy lifestyle and taking precautionary measures can help lower its chances of happening.

In the end, although it’s much more complicated than a normal pregnancy, pregnancy in diabetics now has a good chance of success. All you need is to be informed of all the necessary care that must be taken, and be sure to involve your doctor throughout the whole process to guide you and ensure that everything is in place and that both you and your baby will be in good health.

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Prenatal vitamins are an important source of folate and other vital nutrients during pregnancy. And many women, with the popularity of herbal medicine, take other herbs during pregnancy. Some of these herbs they may have been taking before, for an existing condition. Others, they may take to help cope with some of the physical difficulties that go with pregnancy. The following supplements and food additives should be avoided during pregnancy to avoid potential problems with the health of the baby.

Quinine – Quinine is found in many drinks like tonic water, and these are popular as a result of their slightly bitter taste. But it was found that one woman who drunk more than 1 liter of tonic water a day whilst she was pregnant had a baby that was suffering withdrawal symptoms when it was born. It had nervous tremors within a day of being born, which disappeared two months later. Germany’s BfR (Federal Institute for Risk Assessment) recommends that pregnant women treat quinine drinks, no matter how small the amount of quinine in them, as a medicinal product, and avoid them as a precaution during pregnancy.

Ginseng – One of the more than 20 active constituents of ginseng was found by researchers at the Chinese University of the Hong Kong Prince of Wales Hospital to be a possible cause for concern for pregnant women. These researchers were measuring the effect of this active principle on fetal development in rats. And they found that, relating to the dose, rat embryonic development was affected. Higher doses meant a higher level of abnormalities, according to the markers of development their study used.

Now, this study was one done on rat embryos, and so may not translate into similar effects on humans. And it only studied the effects of one of ginseng’s active constituents, which was a ginsenoside called Rb1. Ginseng actually has over 20 ginsenosides, and other studies have found that these each have different actions.

One of the difficulties with studying active constituents in herbal medicine is that the whole herbal extract may have a very different overall effect than a single constituent. This is because of the way active principles both work together and counteract each other. These two aspects, the fact that the study was not done on humans, and does not measure the overall effect of the whole ginseng extract, mean that its results should be treated cautiously. As a safety precaution, at this time it is best to at least avoid ginseng supplements during the first trimester, as the authors of the study suggest, and probably for the whole of the pregnancy. But ginseng should certainly not be branded dangerous as a result of this research as it is only a very preliminary finding in the overall picture, and more points the way as to where further research needs to be done.

Ginkgo Biloba – Ginkgo biloba is another supplement that is best avoided whilst pregnant. Researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit found one of the constituents of ginkgo biloba in the placenta of women who had taken ginkgo supplements. This particular constituent, an alkaloid called colchicine, can be fatal in high doses, though medicinally, it has great anti-inflammatory effects. Other research has found that cochicine can harm a growing fetus. The potential problem with taking ginkgo supplements regularly whilst pregnant is that colchicine can build up in the womb, like caffeine when taken in excess of the recommended maximum amounts. The researchers did stress that there was no link established in the study between ginkgo and complications in the pregnancy, the study only looked at levels of colchicine in the womb.

References:

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=60554

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=25810

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=20934

Want to know which herbs can safely help with morning sickness? Read this herb pregnancy article, which also covers safe and unsafe herbs for pregnancy. And if you’d like to know about echinacea, goldenseal and pregnancy, read all about it here.

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