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Glucose Tolerance Test and Gestational Diabetes

What You Need to Know

By Sharon Waldrop

Diabetes causes the body to produce an insufficient amount of insulin (blood sugar), or to mismanage the insulin the body does produce. The condition may be triggered by pregnancy in some women, most commonly during the last half of pregnancy, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. The term for this condition is gestational diabetes.

Insulin is a hormone that keeps the right amount of sugar in the bloodstream. Pregnant women need extra amounts of insulin because both the body and placenta make different hormones that partially block the effect of insulin.

Expectant mothers older than age 25 are more likely to suffer from gestational diabetes than are younger mothers. Therefore, women older than 25 are screened for the condition between the 25th and 28th weeks of pregnancy. A non-carbonated bottle of a sweetened beverage is given to the expectant mother to drink the day of her test. The drink tastes like a flat soda. The patient needs to have blood drawn exactly one hour after finishing the beverage, which needs to be consumed within 10 minutes. Timing is crucial to ensure that the test results will be accurate. The blood test poses no risk to Mother or Baby. Laboratory results are usually available within one to two business days.

Mothers-to-be with high glucose levels after the screening test are given a glucose tolerance test, a three-hour test involving three separate blood withdrawals. This means more blood is sent to a lab and another day or two days of waiting is required for the result.

If the test result confirms a high level of glucose, the mother's condition must be monitored carefully. Diet and exercise may control insulin levels. In cases of very high glucose levels, insulin injections are necessary.

Fetal complications due to poorly managed gestational diabetes may include birth defects, very large babies, premature deliveries and the likelihood of serious blood pressure problems, according to Dr. Philip Suarez, editorial advisor for Obgyn.net. These conditions may occur if a mother's condition is serious enough to require insulin injections and those injections are given inconsistently or not at all.