This guide provides basic information to help you start lowering your blood glucose until your appointment with a registered dietitian, the nutrition expert. These are general guidelines which may be tailored to meet your needs. Food is an important tool that you can use to control your blood sugar during pregnancy. Eating healthfully often means making changes in your current eating habits. A registered dietitian can provide in-depth personalized nutrition education to help you develop a personal action plan.

Diabetes and the foods you eat
When you eat or drink, much of your food is broken down into a simple sugar called glucose. Glucose (sugar) provides the energy your body needs for daily activities. Insulin is a hormone that helps your body use glucose for energy. Without enough insulin, sugar cannot get into the body's cells for use as energy. This causes blood glucose to rise. Too much sugar in the blood is called "high blood glucose" or diabetes.

Gestational diabetes
Gestational diabetes is a condition characterized by high blood glucose levels discovered during pregnancy. Gestational diabetes is the result of hormonal changes that occur in all women during pregnancy. Increased levels of certain hormones made in the placenta (the organ that connects the baby by the umbilical cord to the uterus and transfers nutrients from the mother to the baby) interfere with the ability of insulin to manage glucose. This condition is called "insulin resistance." As the placenta grows larger during pregnancy, it produces more hormones and increases this insulin resistance. Usually the mother's pancreas is able to produce more insulin (about three times the normal amount) to overcome the insulin resistance. If the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin to overcome the effect of the increased hormones during pregnancy, glucose levels will rise, resulting in gestational diabetes.

High blood glucose levels that are not treated during pregnancy can cause problems for you and your baby. Gestational diabetes does not cause your baby to have diabetes. However, if left untreated, gestational diabetes can cause your baby to produce too much insulin and gain too much weight, increasing the risk of premature delivery.

Usually, blood glucose levels return to normal after childbirth. However, women who have had gestational diabetes have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.

Diabetes and carbohydrates
Carbohydrates (foods high in starch and sugar) have the greatest impact on blood glucose levels, since they are broken down into glucose during digestion. It is important to control the amount of carbohydrate by eating the same amount of carbohydrate along with some protein and fat at each meal.

Goals for healthy eating