I've decided to decline the GD test...tell me I'm not crazy?!

[skybie]

u stick a strip into a hand held monitor and then princk ur finger with the lancet and squeeze a drop of blood onto the strip and it reads ur levels. idealy as a non diabetic ur levels should be 5.5 and under, 2 hours after a meal.
you can pick them up quite cheaply at the chemist, ive seen some for $35,the one i have it about $60 because it can also test other things.

given u actually didnt know what causes a bigger bub and diabetes, can i suggest you look into it a bit more before you make your final decision, its really doesnt have much to do with your sugar intake

[PumpkinZulu]

My understanding of GD was that it is a carbohydrate intolerance, it makes your blood glucose levels higher than normal, so you'rte producing more insulin which your body cannot handel too well, which means blood glucose levels will rise. That extra glucose gets carried through the placenta to the baby which causes the babies growth to increase, and a lot faster than normal. But I will read up more, my knowledge on it is not extensive and TBH I thought what I knew was correct. Off to do some reading now. Thankyou so much for your concern babe, and making sure I am fully informed.

[Little Chicken]

My understanding of GD was that it is a carbohydrate intolerance, it makes your blood glucose levels higher than normal, so you'rte producing more insulin which your body cannot handel too well, which means blood glucose levels will rise. That extra glucose gets carried through the placenta to the baby which causes the babies growth to increase, and a lot faster than normal. But I will read up more, my knowledge on it is not extensive and TBH I thought what I knew was correct. Off to do some reading now. Thankyou so much for your concern babe, and making sure I am fully informed.

Basically whatever your blood sugar levels are, your bub's blood sugar levels are. Bub deal with excess sugar the same why we do, produces lots of insulin and stores the extra sugar as fat. That's why GD babies can be bigger, not in general size wise neccessarily, but fatter. When bub is exposed to high sugar levels over a sustained period of time, it's pancreas gets used to producing a lot of insulin and becomes what is known as hyperplastic, kind of like a muscle that is used a lot becomes bigger. Unlike normal pancreas's, once the high amount of sugar is suddenly stooped (bub's is born and cord is cut), the pancreas cannot just stop producing insulin, it will keep producing very high amounts of it even when the blood sugar drops to very low levels, which does cause very bad hypoglyceamia. This can take days sometimes weeks to resolve and can require bub's to have a central line insitu to administer high concentration glucose to stabilise the sugars. This is the main thing that happens to baby if GD is poorly controlled. there are a few other effects as well.

[TaRhLi.]

PZ: Your weight and height is similar to mine pre pregnancy for DD and also this time. No GD both times - even though carrying twins is classified as 'high risk' - my results this time were a little on the high side of normal (7.3) but still fine.

Ultimately it is your decision but I decided to have to have it done both times as it is not a major test, just a glucose drink and then a BT 1 hour later, as I wanted to make sure not just my health but the health of the baby/babies was managed as well.