Posts Tagged "Gestational diabetes"

Glucose Tolerance test

  (This is an excerpt from an upcoming book: Haas, AV; Healthy Babies! Healthy Moms! A Practical Guide to Preventing Problems during Pregnancy, Labor, and Birth , 2024) “This is a blood test done around the 24th week of pregnancy to determine if the woman has glucose intolerance. A fasting woman is given a glucose preparation to drink, and then her blood sugar levels are tested at various times.  One of the major problems with glucose tolerance testing is that it does not necessarily tell us if a woman has gestational diabetes. What it can tell us is if her body does not handle excess...

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Preventing Gestational Diabetes

Don’t Risk Yourself Out of a Homebirth: Prevent Gestational Diabetes By Amy V. Haas, BCCE It’s the third class in my childbirth education series – the time when I encourage my students to ask about prenatal testing – and I’ve started to dread some of the questions about glucose tolerance testing. Most of the time, when someone asks about glucose tolerance testing, I discuss the history and refer them to Henci Goer’s book, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth. Typically, at least one person in the class decides they don’t want to be tested. That’s totally their right. But what happens...

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