Why do pregnant women test glucose tolerance?

Every expectant mother hopes that her baby will come into this world healthy and complete, so regular maternal examinations during pregnancy are essential for every expectant mother. Among them, glucose tolerance test is a routine test that every pregnant woman must undergo, because it can effectively infer whether the pregnant woman has developed diabetes during pregnancy. However, at this time, we still need to introduce to you the necessity of glucose tolerance tests for pregnant women.

What is a glucose tolerance test?

1. If the expectant mother's sugar screening results show high risk, doctors will generally recommend continuing to do a sugar tolerance test - a glucose tolerance test, to confirm whether she has gestational diabetes.

2. Glucose tolerance test, also known as glucose tolerance test, is a laboratory test method for diagnosing diabetes. There are two main types: intravenous and oral. The intravenous glucose tolerance test is suitable for special patients such as those after gastrectomy or malabsorption syndrome. The oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is the most common clinical examination method.

Why do we need to do sugar screening?

1. Currently, about 10% of pregnant women suffer from gestational diabetes, and the prevalence has been increasing rapidly.

2. Although a variety of reasons can lead to abnormal sugar metabolism, the human body usually may not show obvious symptoms, and even fasting blood sugar is normal, so it is ignored by many pregnant women.

3. Gestational diabetes has serious adverse effects on both pregnant women and fetuses:

(1) For pregnant women, this condition may cause high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and other symptoms.

(2) For the fetus, it increases the risk of various diseases such as fetal miscarriage, intrauterine growth retardation, malformation, macrosomia, and low birth weight. It is also easy to cause a variety of neonatal complications, such as hyperbilirubinemia, respiratory distress syndrome, etc.

(4) It also affects the future life of pregnant women and fetuses, and they are at a greater risk of developing such diseases than ordinary people.

The above is the editor’s summary of relevant information on the question of what is the glucose tolerance test for pregnant women. It is imperative to do the prenatal check-up recommended by the doctor to reduce the possibility of disease in yourself and your baby. There are some prenatal check-ups that are required, such as genetic diseases and more harmful problems, which require everyone's attention. I wish you all good health!