Gestational Diabetes Chatter #7

[JennaJayen]

Just stopping in to see how you are all going

Kateo - the others are right, levels should be 5 or under before meals and 7 or under 2hrs after meals
And the levels can alter randomly from one day to the next and each finger will give you a different reading - sometimes the same finger can give you several different readings (I experimented lol) as it depends on how much glucose is in that particular sample of blood that you squeezed out.

re baby shower nibbles: plain or salted popcorn, I found that was a great snack in the later weeks of pregnancy with the GD

re weight gain/loss - I lost 22kg in pregnancy... and have lost almost 8kg since lol

re heelprck tests - they generally do them for 24 hours, and if the baby shows signs of low glucose then they go to 48 hours, and they'll get you to start expressing from 36wks onwards and freeze the colostrum as they will probably give bub his/her first feed of colostrum with a syringe, especially if bub has to go to the nursery.
You can use a manual pup to express - I did and had 150mls of colostrum in the freezer ready for DD, and my milk came in the night after she was born

AND last bit of advice in case anyone was hoping to have VBAC or go into labour naturally - you don't HAVE to be induced, and you CAN have a VBAC
I had a VBAC at 40+2, though they had to break my waters after 3 weeks of constant irregular contractions lol, but I ended up only having a 4hr 43min labour, so t worked out well.

AND, bubs aren't always big just because you have GD, my DD was only 8pd, so you can back your OB up against a wall to demand to be left alone for as long as you want though you'll probably still have to have the daily monitoring after 40wks... and you can have an active labour as well, just demand to use the wireless monitors Ad breaking of the waters if you're already dilated and effaced can be a natural induction option as well, just remember that you can go for up to 48 hours with waters broken before the threat of infection becomes an issue, and don't let the OBs and midwives force you into something you don't want It's your body and your baby