Do I have Gestational Diabetes?

What is gestational diabetes?

This is a type of diabetes that some women develop during pregnancy. Between 2 and 7 percent of expectant mothers develop this condition, making it one of the most common health problems of pregnancy.

When you eat, your digestive system breaks most of your food down into a type of sugar called glucose. The glucose enters your bloodstream and then — with the help of insulin, a hormone made by your pancreas — provides fuel for the cells of your body. Like the type 1 and type 2 diabetes you can get when you're not pregnant, gestational diabetes causes the glucose to stay in your blood instead of moving into your cells and getting converted to energy. Why does this sometimes happen when you're pregnant?

During pregnancy, your hormones make it tougher for your body to use insulin, so your pancreas needs to produce more of it. For most moms-to be, this isn't a problem: As your need for insulin increases, your pancreas dutifully secretes more of it. But when a woman's pancreas can't keep up with the insulin demand and her blood glucose levels get too high, the result is gestational diabetes.

Most women with gestational diabetes don't remain diabetic once the baby is born. Once you've had it, though, you're at higher risk for getting it again during a future pregnancy and for becoming diabetic later in life.

(I hope this is something I won't have to worry about. I am so scared....)