What are the causes and symptoms of gestational diabetes?
Most women with gestational diabetes have no recognizable symptoms. However, leaving gestational diabetes undiagnosed and untreated is risky to the developing fetus. Left untreated, a diabetic mother’s blood sugar levels will be consistently high. This sugar will cross the placenta and pour into the baby’s system through the umbilical cord. The unborn baby’s pancreas will respond to this high level of sugar by constantly putting out large amounts of insulin. The insulin will allow the fetus’s cells to take in glucose, where it will be converted to fat and stored. A baby who has been exposed to constantly high levels of sugar throughout pregnancy will be abnormally large. Such a baby will often grow so large that he or she cannot be born through the vagina, but will instead need to be born through a surgical procedure (cesarean section). Furthermore, when the baby is born, the baby will still have an abnormally large amount of insulin circulating. After birth, when the mother and baby a
