Sugar mothers is the nickname we give to people with gestational diabetes, and refers to pregnant mothers who develop diabetes after pregnancy or who had diabetes before pregnancy. They are diagnosed with gestational diabetes when they find abnormally high blood glucose after “drinking sugar water” (75g OGTT glucose tolerance test), or when their fasting blood glucose or random blood glucose is higher than normal during early checkups, and then they start a tug-of-war between themselves and blood glucose, using food, exercise and insulin to resist the increase of blood glucose. However, some sugar mothers do not pay enough attention to it and cannot control their mouths and legs, so their blood glucose measurement results are higher and higher one after another. This makes people worried and anxious, thinking that it may be caused by the lack of disease education and patients’ awareness of disease risks, so it is necessary to talk more carefully about the immediate and long-term risks of gestational diabetes. Sugar moms, your worries are not just about elevated blood sugar. 1. The health of sugar moms can be threatened. The essence of gestational diabetes is also a kind of diabetes, if not properly controlled blood sugar, it will cause nutritional imbalance, leading to vascular disease, ketoacidosis, retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy, etc. Such examples are not unheard of in clinical practice. The gestational diabetes can also be complicated by gestational hypertension, the development of pre-eclampsia is more common, if the emergence of eclampsia that can be a serious threat to the life of the mother and child. 2, sugar baby growth and development will be abnormal If the mother’s blood sugar control is not good, so that the baby grows up in sugar water, the baby’s risk of birth defects will increase 4-8 times, such as neurological, cardiovascular system diseases, kidney, gastrointestinal abnormalities and other congenital diseases are possible. Moreover, gestational diabetes also increases the risk of miscarriage, preterm delivery, and placental abruption, and there is a correlation between the rate of miscarriage and the mother’s blood sugar control. Most of the sugar babies are born as huge babies, with less physiological functions in all aspects than non-hypoglycemic babies, and the incidence of diseases such as neonatal respiratory distress syndrome and hyperbilirubinemia can increase 5-6 times. One of the most common problems is neonatal hypoglycemia. In order to adapt to the maternal environment with excessive glucose in the womb, the baby will develop hyperinsulinemia, and after birth, although it is free from high sugar status, but the body insulin is still at a high level, it is prone to hypoglycemia, and if the postnatal treatment care is not appropriate, convulsions, coma and even brain damage can occur. 3. The way of delivery process will be affected Sugar mothers can have a vaginal trial of labor if their blood sugar is well controlled and no complications arise. In order to avoid maternal physical exhaustion and hypoglycemia during delivery, it is often necessary to take appropriate vaginal assistance measures, such as perineal incision. The risk of soft birth canal injury to the mother during delivery is increased because the fetus is usually huge. If the natural delivery does not go well, an immediate cesarean section is required. The risk of postpartum hemorrhage will also increase whether the baby is born or delivered by cesarean section, which may lead to anemia and blood transfusion, or even life threatening hysterectomy. 4. The future health of mother and baby is at risk. If you actively cooperate with treatment during pregnancy and control blood sugar well after delivery, blood sugar can return to normal level, but 40-60% of sugar mothers will develop type II diabetes in the future 10-15 years. Meanwhile, according to DOHaD’s “Developmental Origins of Health and Disease” theory, the incidence of chronic metabolic diseases such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes will increase accordingly when sugar babies grow up. Are you now aware of the dangers of gestational diabetes? Having said all these health risks of gestational diabetes, we must not forget one major premise: it is all prone to occur without proper blood sugar control. If gestational diabetes is discovered, if you can cooperate well with treatment, control your diet, eat less and more often, exercise actively, and combine work and rest, your blood sugar can mostly be controlled within the normal range, and the chances of these adverse outcomes will be greatly reduced. Gestational diabetes affects the mother’s health and threatens the baby’s life. I hope you can recognize the danger of gestational diabetes, and if you are not sick, please actively prevent the disease, and if you are sick, please actively cooperate with the treatment, and be responsible for the life and health of yourself and your baby.