I love Christmas and if you’re anything like me, then you can already hear those Sleigh Bells ringing!
Lots of things are important to me over this festive period and one of those things include the yummy, indulgent food. However, last year, in the lead up to December, I was pregnant and was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes which is high blood sugar (glucose) that develops during pregnancy and usually disappears after giving birth.
I was shocked as my diet wasn’t unhealthy and I don’t have a sweet tooth, so I wondered how this had happened and what I would be able to eat over the Yuletide. The GD team reassured me that it is driven by the hormones that are released from the placenta so was nothing that I had done wrong.
I felt relieved that it had nothing to do with all the bread, pasta and potatoes I had been consuming – I had been eating for 2 after all! There is a lot of stigma that is connected with a diabetes diagnosis and people often make assumptions due to poor knowledge of the subject. After being told about the serious and potentially life-threatening effects that high sugar levels could have on my unborn baby, I immediately started to do my research on how to keep my levels low through my diet, as these were monitored every day, several times, by blood prick tests on my fingers which were logged on an app and sent through to the team at the hospital.
This was when I came across a website called Gestational Diabetes UK via Instagram.
I have to say, that this site saved my life!
There is lots of information from diagnosis to the birth but it also includes lots of recipes/drinks (my favourites being the arrowroot powder Yorkshire puddings I made for my Christmas Day dinner and the chocolate brownies) and advice on brands of diabetes friendly foods such as low carb bread and soup and high protein ice cream to name a few, that help keep your GD diet controlled which prevented me from needing to take medication and kept my blood sugar levels from getting too high or low.
It was a very tough 4 months for me, but I managed to keep my GD diet controlled and I now have to have annual blood tests to ensure that I haven’t developed type 2 diabetes. My advice to any women out there that have been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes is to do lots of research yourself and to try to remember that this isn’t forever and most importantly, it is for the health and life of your baby.
You’ve got this mama!
Article by: Priya Donaldson