How do high blood glucose levels cause problems?
• Big Babies When extra sugar is in your blood, the baby is “fed” extra sugar, too. All this excess sugar can make the baby too big and fat. Delivery of big babies is harder on mom and baby. • Baby Hypoglycemia Because your baby is getting extra sugar, your baby’s pancreas makes extra insulin. After birth, it’s hard for the baby to stop putting out extra insulin. The baby must be watched, and treated if the blood glucose level drops too low. • Jaundice For some reason, jaundice happens more often in babies of women with diabetes. Jaundice is a build-up of old red blood cells that the body can’t process fast enough. This problem goes away rapidly with treatment.
