How to do sugar screening for pregnant women

Pregnant women are required to undergo a test to check whether they have developed diabetes during pregnancy. Nowadays, the chance of getting diabetes during pregnancy is very high. If you suffer from gestational diabetes, it will affect the health of the pregnant woman and will also have a very big impact on the fetus. For the health of themselves and their babies, pregnant women are advised to undergo a sugar screening test between the 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy.

What is Sugar Screening

"Sugar screening" is a screening to check whether a pregnant woman has gestational diabetes. It is usually performed when the pregnant woman is 24-28 weeks pregnant. This is a project that most pregnant women have to undergo. If the results of the pregnant woman's glucose screening are abnormal, a further glucose tolerance test should be performed to confirm whether she has gestational diabetes.

Why do we need to do sugar screening?

1. Currently, approximately 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.

Therefore, it is very necessary for pregnant women to undergo sugar screening tests, which is also responsible for themselves and their babies.

How to do sugar screening

Many expectant mothers don't know how to do sugar screening? What do you need to prepare before doing it? Or what small details do you need to pay attention to? In order to ensure the accuracy of sugar screening, let's talk about what pregnant women should do.

It is generally recommended to conduct maternal glucose screening between the 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy.

1. Do not eat after 8 pm the day before the screening.

2. Sugar screening requires blood draw on an empty stomach, so most hospitals will schedule it in the morning and will not accept patients after the scheduled time.

3. Drink glucose water one hour before the sugar screening. Note that blood can only be drawn one hour after drinking the sugar water.

4. If the journey exceeds one hour, you can take glucose water on the way.

Specific methods for sugar screening for pregnant women:

1. The first step is to draw blood on an empty stomach and measure blood sugar levels.

2. The second step is to measure blood sugar level again 60 minutes after taking 50g of glucose.

3. If the blood sugar value is ≥7.8mmol/L at this time, it means that the sugar screening is abnormal. Then we need to do a further glucose tolerance test. The opposite is normal.