A diabetes question

[hedgehog]

I've heard that if you have babes over nine pounds, your chances of developing diabetes are greater. My children were heavy but well proportioned; they were also long babies. There father is also tall and skinny. During my pregnancies, I had several tests involving a glucose challenge while fasting, and my blood sugar was always normal. Can anyone clarify whether I'm at a higher risk for diabetes simply because I had large babies?

[liberalnurse]

1. What you describe is really just

a warning of "the potential" for diabetes. What has been observed is this:

An in-utero fetus of a diabetic mother tends to be a larger baby due to the high caloric/glucose availability within the diabetic mother's blood supply...which feeds the fetus....

This observation suggests that maybe the mother of large babies could be at risk for diabetes in the future...maybe not....just a tid-bit to keep on the back burner....

[TexasProgresive]

2. I would say you are safe since

you had normal sugars during pregnancy. My wife had big babies- one 10lb 9oz and she even had her sugar elevate once when she ate a 2lb bag of m and m's. She is 68 and is not diabetic or even close and her dad was type 2 diabetic. Me with no kin with high sugar is diabetic.wah! wah! wah!

[Roaming]

3. Size of baby and risk of diabetes are not related

Only if you had elevated sugars in pregnancy. They do a standard test for this in the second trimester. The reason that diabetic mothers have large babies is because of the extra sugar floating around in their blood, which packs pounds onto the baby. A genetically large baby has nothing to do with sugar, it's just his/her inherited size.

[yellowcanine]

4. My three brothers and I were 10 pounders and my sister was 9 pounds.

My 84 year old mother does not have diabetes and she is somewhat overweight.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

5. What poster #3 said. It's more the reverse: if you have diabetes,

including gestational diabetes, you are more likely to have a big baby, reason being because baby takes up extra sugar that's available in the blood, makes the baby big and chunky.

I don't know if this effect tends to have any lasting consequences to the baby in most cases, I don't believe it does but I'm not sure.

[hedgehog]

6. Thanks!

[depakid]

7. There's a good reason why Medicare pays for diabetes screening

who have either:

"A history of gestational diabetes mellitus, or delivery of a baby weighing greater than 9 pounds"

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/DiabetesScreening/

The public health literature ALL recommends screening based on this risk factor.

As a matter of fact- there's so much material out there listing this as a risk factor for women later in life- and urging them to get screened- that without developing a well refined seerch query, I haven't been able to find a good explanation of the clinical reason for this!

The database is crammed.

I'll ask one of the docs on Monday.

[Warpy]

8. Maybe, maybe not

because gestational diabetes would have shown up in your blood sugar as well as in the sizes of the children.

I'd think it unlikely, but it's something you'll have to have checked every once in a while, usually with your yearly checkup. A random glucose is part of the blood work the average doc does during the checkup.

[hedgehog]

9. That's why I always try to schedule my appointments first thing in

the morning and never eat breakfast first. Most of those blood tests need to be done on a fasting stomach to ensure an accurate result.

[trotsky]

10. Similar to yellowcanine above,

my sister and I were over 9 lbs., and my brother well over 10. My mother is now 59 and has never had any symptoms of diabetes.

What is a far better indicator is whether you have a family history of it, I think.