Gestational Diabetes

Gestational diabetes only happens during pregnancy. It means you have high blood sugar levels, but those levels were normal before you were pregnant. If you have it, you can still have a healthy baby with help from your doctor and by doing simple things to manage your blood sugar, also called blood glucose.

After your baby is born, gestational diabetes usually goes away. Gestational diabetes makes you more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, but it won’t definitely happen.

Causes

During pregnancy, the placenta makes hormones that can lead to a buildup of glucose in your blood. Usually, your pancreas can make enough insulin to handle that. If not, your blood sugar levels will rise and can cause gestational diabetes.