Gestational diabetes is the type of diabetes pregnant women suffer from. It affects the mother in late pregnancy, when the baby’s body has been formed. At this stage baby is busy growing only so gestational diabetes doesn’t cause the kinds of birth defects.

Although it doesn’t cause any defect, but remaining untreated or poorly controlled, gestational diabetes can hurt the baby in some other ways. Gestational diabetes sufferers happen to have pancreas working overtime to produce insulin. Insulin does not lower the blood glucose levels and so, the extra blood glucose goes through the placenta, giving the baby high blood glucose levels. This way the baby’s pancreas makes extra insulin to get rid of the blood glucose.

In a nut shell, baby is getting more energy than it needs to grow and develop, the extra energy is stored as fat, that causes many other malfunctioning or diseases. For instance, the extra stored fats can also cause ‘macrosomia’, or a “fat” baby. Such babies are also vulnerable to damage to their shoulders during birth, and breathing problems, and above all they are at risk for type 2 diabetes.

Gestational diabetes needs a proper care in diet, as it’s affecting not only mother’s health but also child’s. It should never be aimed to restrict the diabetic from existing eating habits, instead just a different pattern of eating that provides a better food combinations. There is actually no standard diet plan for gestational diabetes patients, as it depends on the body weight, age, general eating habits, and the time of pregnancy. However, here’re some guidelines that can help making a custom diet plan.

• Don’t include food items that increase the overall calorie intake, i.e. sweets, chocolates, ice-creams, fruit juices, honey, muffins and other foods having excessive amounts of sugar, complex carbohydrates and fats.
• Diet plan should be consisting of small intervals of three to four hours. This will help the metabolism proper.
• Diabetic should not keep the stomach empty for long hours during gestational diabetes. It can result in hypoglycemia.
• Diet plan should have a better combination of proteins, carbohydrates and healthy fats.
• Include food with high fiber intake. Also, keep a strict count of average number of carbohydrates consumed per day.

Check out healthy recipes, better diet combinations, important diabtic foods and a lot more on diabetic diets resource.