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Natural Birth
MBush4
member
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GD and NB
MBush4
member
I failed my 1-hr GTT and will have to take the 3-hr test next week. Until I know for sure whether I have GD or not I want to go in with the mindset that I do and change any habits that might be unhealthy so that if it is confirmed I have already begun to make necessary changes. But I have a question....
DH and I feel very strongly about having a NB. But I know that with GD the baby will often grow much larger than a regular baby. In addition, I'm pretty small (5' on a good day) so I know that my need for having c-section will be higher. But do any of you have experience with GD and NB? I would like to deliver naturally, if possible, and was wondering what else I would need to do to prep my body for this. Thanks!
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Re: GD and NB
I had GD. Babe was born 3 days after EDD weighing 8lbs8oz.
My GP (yes, GP, no OB/GYN in town) does not consider GD to be a complication on its own.
Follow the advice of your health care professionals, I was able to control with diet and exercise. GD turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me. I gained 28lbs, lost 18 in the process of the delivery and was back at pre pregnancy weight at my 6 week post partum check up.
I was diagnosed with GD (my fasting level was fine, 3 hr was fine, but 1 & 2 hrs were too high) and like you, I was intent upon having a natural birth. The problem is when they slap the GD label on you, you're automatically lumped into the "high risk" category. I was seeing a group of CNMs at a local hospital, and what I basically had to do was convince/petition them (via 2 weeks worth of PERFECT blood sugar readings, diet & exercise log) to treat me normally. My argument was basically that I was "diabetic" only because I'd consumed all their sugar water, which I felt was somewhat of an arbitrary measure, especially since I don't eat sweets or drink juice/soda, but okay I get it -- my body doesn't process it out fast enough so there's the danger I could be dumping all those extra sugars/calories into my unborn baby.
There's the fear out there that GD babies mean bigger babies. Whether that's correlation or causation is IMO highly debatable. Most GD mamas are overweight to begin with or gain too much weight too rapidly during the pregnancy, and I imagine many of them are/were diabetic or pre-diabetic and just hadn't even been tested prior to pregnancy. The rest of the GD patients are otherwise healthy women where it's simply a case of the hormones produced by our placentas interfering with how our body normally produces/regulates insulin.
If you have GD; particularly, if you have GD that has to be controlled through meds or insulin shots, the hospital staff will likely be "required" to administer certain "standards of care" such as continuous electronic fetal monitoring, routine bloodwork & IV upon admission, feeding sugar water to your newborn after testing its blood sugar, and a whole slew of other fun stuff. I was a PITA patient for sure, but I was informed and I demanded several long discussions of my health care team about them accomodate me as the INDIVIDUAL that I was, rather than a "diagnosis" alone.
In the end I got what I wanted, but it took some effort on my part, and the midwives had to basically get permission from the other OBs and specialists on their team. I delivered my daughter naturally, with no interventions/drugs/epidural, and she was 18.5 inches long and 7.5 lbs at 40 weeks 3 days.
TALK TALK TALK to your doctor. If they seem flexible and will speak with you in an honest & straightforward fashion about what they'll have to do to avoid liability/malpractice issues, where you might have to have some room to accomodate them, and vice versa, I would welcome that discussion. If your doctor/midwife starts talking about automatic induction at 39 weeks or junk like that, I'd start looking for someone else.
BFP #2 03/08/11 EDD 11/16/11 DD Born on 11/04/11
BFP #3 08/29/12 EDD 05/06/13 M/C on 08/30/12
BFP #4 11/01/12 EDD 07/09/2013 M/C on 12/28/12
BFP #5 04/30/13 EDD 01/03/14 DS Born on 01/02/14
BFP #6 01/11/15 EDD 09/22/15 M/C 03/09/15