Diabetes mellitus developed during pregnancy is called gestational diabetes.Often disappears after gestation.However, these women have a greater risk of presenting a type 2 diabetes mellitus at any later time of their lives, especially those exceeded in their body weight.
It has been found how up to a third of women with this type of diabetes had a history of having suffered gestational diabetes.
Risk factors
Excess body weight is known as risk factor, both for type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes.
When a woman suffers from diabetes during her pregnancy, it is indicative of being likely to evolve towards type 2 diabetes. Encouragement, even, just a little above the established, she can already make stronger candidates for this disease.
Women diagnosed with gestational diabetes should try to all a trance after delivery an adequate body weight, through a healthy diet and the practice of physical activities throughout their lives, in order to reduce the risk of diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is not suddenly presented, as its development is long term.Two of his most important risk factors in women, we reiterate, is to have had gestational diabetes and the increase in their body weight, both before and after a pregnancy.
body weight, pregnancy and diabetes
In an investigation carried out at the National Institute of Children's Health and Human Development of the United States, and published in the Diabetology magazine, data from almost 1,700 women followed for 18 years were obtained.
Almost half of pregnant women increased more weight in relation to that recommended during pregnancy.The risk of contracting type 2 diabetes grew by 27 % for every 11 pounds (5 kilograms), increased by each of them after contracting gestational diabetes, regardless of what its weight prior to pregnancy was.
But for women already obese, when they developed gestational diabetes, increase 11 pounds or more associated with a 43 -time risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared to non -obese women, with only one weight gain less than 11pounds after having contracted gestational diabetes.
The probable causes
The definitive diagnosis of type 2 diabetes is probably a process of approximately 15 years of evolution and begins to the progressive worsening of the function of certain pancreas cells.
A resistance to the action of insulin hormone is created, one of the pancreatic hormones, mainly due to the increase in body fat.Hence the close relationship between diet, exercise and standardization of weight, with respect to a progressive decrease in insulin resistance and progressive normalization of blood glucose figures.
the best decision
It is common to find women with a progressive increase in their weight during and after several pregnancies, as if it were a vicious circle.It becomes a problem with not good consequences for the health of the mother and that of the baby.
Most can naively believe to be able to eliminate excessive weight quickly and easily after childbirth, and in reality this is not so.
The wisest behavior is to follow the orientations of the obstetrician in relation to the best food during the gestation months and comply with the calculations of the proper increase in body weight at this stage of female life.
In the long run it will result for better benefit to both of both of the mother and the small newborn.
