What does the glucose test mainly check?

Pregnant women are a group that deserves special protection. There are many examinations that pregnant women need to do during pregnancy, and many pregnant women don’t even know what examinations they have done. Sugar screening is a test that pregnant women often do during pregnancy. So what does Down syndrome screening test for? What preparations are needed for sugar screening?

1. What does sugar screening check?

"Sugar screening test" is the general term for diabetes screening during marriage, childbirth and pregnancy. If the risk of diabetes in the sugar screening is high, the doctor will generally recommend another glucose tolerance test to diagnose whether there is pregnancy and diabetes. Diabetes during pregnancy can cause all kinds of harm to the mother and the fetus, and in severe cases it can threaten the personal safety of mothers and babies.

In the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, after 24 weeks of pregnancy, a diabetes screening test should also be done. In other words, take 50 grams of glucose and test the blood sugar level in one hour. If this value exceeds 140 mg per deciliter, it means that the screening test is positive and you need to do an OGT test, called the glucose tolerance test. It is to draw blood once on an empty stomach in the morning and then take 75 grams of glucose. After taking the glucose, the test is done 1, 2, and 3 hours later. If one of them is abnormal, it is diagnosed as impaired glucose metabolism, and if two are abnormal, it is diagnosed as gestational diabetes.

2. Preparations for pregnant women before sugar screening

1. Plenty of time to avoid fasting

Due to stricter diagnostic criteria, more and more pregnant women in clinical medicine have abnormal fasting blood sugar or GCT screening, but they are normal when doing OGTT test. The reason is generally that the fasting time is not enough.

Many pregnant women have the habit of eating at night, which results in insufficient fasting time of 8 hours. Usually the fasting or 1-hour blood sugar level extracted the next day will be higher than the standard value. In this case, it is recommended that pregnant women give up this test and change the time. Some pregnant mothers also rush to the hospital for blood tests after eating granulated sugar at home, which increases the body's stress and causes the blood sugar level to rise.

Therefore, we recommend that you go to the hospital on an empty stomach to stabilize yourself before taking fine sugar, and have your blood drawn for testing 1 hour later. Some pregnant mothers have to queue up in less than an hour, and the blood test time is less than 60 minutes, which will also affect the blood sugar level. Generally, hospitals only take care of pregnant mothers who are undergoing GCT or OGTT tests. As long as the time is up, they can jump the queue for blood tests.

2. Specific guidance on diet before blood test

Before doing GCT or OGTT, pregnant women should have a normal diet, that is, more than 150-200g of carbohydrates per day. In other words, they should not skip meals just because their blood sugar levels are abnormal, which will lead to the illusion that their blood sugar levels are normal in time. We often find in clinical medicine that pregnant mothers strictly control their sweets intake before each blood test until the blood sugar results are normal, and then overeat, and their blood sugar control is inconsistent with the test results.