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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffResearchers don't yet know exactly why some women develop gestational diabetes. To understand how gestational diabetes occurs, it can help to understand how glucose is normally processed in the body.
Insulin is a substance produced by your pancreas. After you eat, sugar molecules from food — called glucose — flow into your bloodstream. Insulin helps glucose move from your bloodstream into cells in your body where it can be used as energy.
During pregnancy, the placenta that surrounds your growing baby produces high levels of a variety of hormones. Almost all of them impair the action of insulin in the tissues, thereby raising blood sugar. Modest elevation of blood sugar after meals is normal during pregnancy.
As your baby grows, the placenta produces more and more insulin-interfering hormones. In gestational diabetes, the placental hormones provoke a rise in blood sugar to a level that can affect the growth and development of your baby. Gestational diabetes usually develops during the last half of pregnancy — rarely as early as the 20th week, but often not until later in the pregnancy.
- Strehlow SL, et al. Diabetes mellitus & pregnancy. In: DeCherney AH, et al. Current Diagnosis & Treatment: Obstetrics & Gynecology. 10th ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill; 2007. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=2385290. Accessed Jan. 9, 2009.
- Jovanovic L. Screening and diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Jan. 5, 2009.
- Jovanovic L. Treatment and course of gestational diabetes mellitus. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Jan. 9, 2009.
- Diabetes. In: Cunningham FG, et al. Williams Obstetrics. 22nd ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill; 2005:1172.
- Cheng YV, et al. Gestational weight gain and gestational diabetes mellitus. Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2008;112:1015.
- Gestational diabetes. American Diabetes Association. http://www.diabetes.org/gestational-diabetes.jsp. Accessed Jan. 6, 2009.
- Gilmartin AH, et al. Gestational diabetes mellitus. Reviews in Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2008;1:129. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=19015764. Accessed Jan. 3, 2009.
