Sorry something went wrong with your subscription
Please, try again in a couple of minutes
It is still unknown why some pregnant women develop gestational diabetes while others do not. Excess weight before pregnancy often plays a role.
Typically, a number of hormones regulate blood sugar levels. However, as a result of changing hormone levels during pregnancy, the body has a harder time processing blood sugar effectively. This makes blood sugar rise.
Risk factors for gestational diabetes include:
Untreated gestational diabetes can result in high blood sugar levels. You and your unborn child may experience issues as a result of high blood sugar, including an increased likelihood that you will require a C-section delivery procedure.
From Mayo Clinic to your inbox
Register for free to stay informed about recent medical developments, health advice, and hot topics like COVID-19. You’ll also gain knowledge about managing your health. Email.
We may combine your email and website usage data with other information we have about you in order to give you the information that is most pertinent and useful to you and to determine which information is helpful. This might contain protected health information if you are a patient of Mayo Clinic. In the event that this information is combined with your protected health information, we will treat the combined information as protected health information and only use or disclose it in the ways described in our notice of privacy practices. By clicking the unsubscribe link in the email, you can decide at any time not to receive any more communications from us.
Soon, you’ll begin receiving the most recent Mayo Clinic health information in your inbox.
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a division of the National Institutes of Health, is providing this information as a service. The NIDDK translates and disseminates research findings to improve patients’, healthcare professionals’, and the public’s knowledge of health and disease. NIDDK scientists and other professionals thoroughly review all content created by the organization.
Your body produces unique hormones and experiences other changes during pregnancy, such as weight gain. Insulin resistance is a condition where your body’s cells struggle to effectively use insulin as a result of these changes. All pregnant women have some insulin resistance during late pregnancy. The majority of pregnant women can produce sufficient amounts of insulin to combat insulin resistance, but some cannot These women develop gestational diabetes.