Unknowingly, I was 32 weeks pregnant. With luck, everything went smoothly, without early morning sickness or any discomfort. My boss always says I'm the "chillest" pregnant woman she's ever seen. Because I am currently studying in the United States, my prenatal check-ups follow the procedures here in the United States. I performed a routine blood sugar screening at 28 weeks, and unexpectedly discovered that I failed. For this reason, I also want to make a record and leave some different memories for my children in the future.

Let me briefly introduce the gestational diabetes screening in the United States, also known as "sugar screening". It is usually performed at 24-28 weeks. Let you drink a bottle of sugar water containing 50g one hour before blood drawing, and then draw blood. The measurement unit is different from that in China. The normal range is 60-129mg/dL, which is 3.33-7.17 in China. My examination results are as shown below:

My hospital will have its own medical records online, and all examination results will be available soon. So, after seeing this result, I was very different. Because it exceeds 200mg/dL, some hospitals may be stricter than 180, and it will be directly diagnosed as gestational diabetes.

Once the "sugar screen" fails, a "glucose tolerance" test is required.

You need to fast for 10-12 hours, then take a fasting test, drink 100g of sugar water, wait 1, 2, and 3 hours before taking a blood draw, and draw blood 4 times a day. The concentration of this sugar water is very high and difficult to swallow. During the blood draw, I also discovered a very interesting phenomenon. My two arms were drawn by different people. One was a young girl with long manicure and gloves. I whispered to my husband, If this were done in China, he would definitely be fired. . . The other was an elderly nurse. Everything was done according to the regulations. It took 15 seconds to apply the alcohol cotton ball. She really said "one, two, three..." and apologized to me for saying that she had obsessive-compulsive disorder. . But it was obvious that the young nurse punctured my blood vessel, while the experienced nurse pumped the same blood vessel twice and it seemed to be fine.

If two of the four blood draws exceed the limit, you will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I regret that I exceeded it by a few cents the second time, but it was still unavoidable and I officially became a "sugar mommy."

To be honest, deep down, I never thought I might develop gestational diabetes. I was the captain of the volleyball team in college and participated in the 5-kilometer race walk event in the University Games. Although I started to gain weight after working, before coming to the United States, I often went to the gym to exercise. When I was one month pregnant, I once climbed a mountain for three hours and back and forth because I didn’t know. When I was two months pregnant, I went to Yellowstone Park, walking up to 25 kilometers in one day. When I was five months pregnant, I went to Las Vegas. Siwan, walking up to 15 kilometers a day. I'm fine at ordinary times, just walking around in the workplace.

This kind of body makes me very confident that it is impossible to have diabetes. The result is a slap in the face. . . .

My prenatal midwife ordered a blood glucose meter and test strips for me, and asked me to speak with the diabetic educator here, that is, a diabetes educator (this is a profession that requires an exam to be registered, and has knowledge of diabetes. Expertise in all aspects of blood sugar control) make an appointment to meet.

Because my own basic research is on the ocular surface complications of diabetes, and I have made countless rats into diabetes models, I know how terrible it is to become diabetic in the end. Gestational diabetes will not only cause excessive growth, hypoglycemia, jaundice, premature birth, etc. in the baby, but I myself will have a higher proportion of real diabetic patients within five years after giving birth. As a foodie, this is terrible news.

So, before meeting the diabetic educator, I had already started to give up rice and only ate one piece of whole wheat bread for one meal, and then I ate more vegetables and meat. Start walking after eating. During my routine prenatal check-up, I was actually 3 pounds lighter than my last check-up, which was two weeks ago.

I finally met the diabetes educator yesterday. The waiting room was very comfortable and the whole clinic was interesting. Because there was no clinic anymore, I actually met her in the dermatology clinic.

The first thing I say when you meet me is that it is not your fault that you have gestational diabetes.

The entire body undergoes tremendous changes during pregnancy. The secretion of hormones will make the hormone levels of the entire body very different from those before pregnancy. Especially in the third trimester of pregnancy, the secretion of insulin that lowers blood sugar cannot keep up. At this time, Diabetes may occur.

I got a booklet that introduced the carbohydrate content of various foods. What I need to ensure is that I have 175g of carbohydrates every day.

When asking me what I ate, this is the difference between Chinese and Western cultures. . . Because I cook and eat by myself, I can only rely on Google to communicate about the fried beans and sprouts for lunch and the black wolfberry I often drink. . .

But according to the doctor’s comparison, the actual amount of rice I can eat is much less than what I ate before. This may be the biggest reason why Asians are more susceptible to gestational diabetes.

So basically, if you control your rice, it will be much better. Through communication, I discovered that I am not eating enough carbohydrates now, and this is not a good thing. Everything must have a degree.

Now is the time to understand the ingredient list. Every product has an ingredient list. There are two main things to understand:

1. What is the serving size

2. How many carbohydrates are there in this portion?

Educator gives me a lot of freedom in what to eat. No matter how much sugar is, it is still carbohydrate, so as long as the carbohydrates are not If it exceeds the standard, you can actually eat anything. There is no need to change your life schedule or your dietary preferences for this. You just need to control your carbohydrate intake at each meal every day.

This is different from my previous point of view. Either being diagnosed with diabetes means the end of the world, and life will be completely different from before. Rather, life will be more controlled, and more so in a good direction.

After chatting with the educator, I seemed to be in a much better mood.

I need to prick my finger four times a day to test my blood sugar, once in the morning on an empty stomach and three times one hour after meals. I also test my urine for ketones when I wake up in the morning to ensure that I consume enough carbohydrates.

What I was asked to do is as follows:

The only thing I should pay attention to is that I can exercise for 15 minutes after meals, which is very helpful for blood sugar consumption; at the same time, I need to eat some snacks from time to time. Make sure to eat small and frequent meals, and eat something within 2-3 hours to ensure that blood sugar is in a relatively stable state.

I was asked to write down in detail what I eat every day, my blood sugar levels, and my exercise status. Return to check the work after one week.

If everything is normal, I can just upload my blood sugar values ??online every two weeks.

What impressed me most about American doctors is that they attach great importance to the patient's emotions, because this is one of the important factors that determine whether the patient can comply with the doctor's instructions and achieve real treatment results. Therefore, their treatment will do their best to make it convenient for patients. I used to lose weight for a period of time through high protein and low fat. The process of calculating how to eat was very complicated, so I originally thought that the situation would be the same. However, the educator does not have requirements for protein and fat intake. It has a clear purpose of ensuring normal blood sugar, so controlling carbohydrates is the first step. If you eat healthy, your baby will naturally get the nutrients he needs.

Slowly, I gained confidence. I hope that through such adjustments, I can achieve good results in the follow-up consultation next week.

Having said so much, what I want to say is that even if you really have gestational diabetes, it is not terrible. If you control your diet well and continue to maintain it after giving birth to your baby, you can still be a healthy mother. Baby. :)