You’ve just been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Your head is spinning. Maybe you’ve always been in good health, and this diagnosis feels like it’s coming out of nowhere. Or maybe your mom had it, and it’s not such a surprise.
Surprise or not, this has added an unpleasant wrinkle to the fabric of your pregnancy.
If this is you, you’re not alone. Approximately 2-10% of pregnancies include a gestational diabetes diagnosis,1 and that number is going up. Between 2016 and 2020, the gestational diabetes rate jumped by 30%.2
Researchers are not sure of the reason for the dramatic recent increase, but overall risk factors include a higher BMI, previous blood sugar management, more advanced maternal age (ah, how I hate that term), plurality (having twins or triplets instead of singletons), and race and ethnicity.3
Depending on the severity, your individual circumstances, and your provider’s approach, you may be granted a window of time to tackle gestational diabetes through diet and exercise, or you may immediately begin metformin or insulin.
If you decide to try to address it through diet and exercise, I’ll have some resources for you in the coming weeks. In the meantime, there is something you can do today, before you even touch your diet, regardless of whether you are on medication or not:
Take a walk!
I kid you not. A 20-minute walk with intervals (alternating fast and slow walking), done immediately after eating meals, was shown to control blood sugar in women with gestational diabetes.4
This is great news! Walking is:
- Safe for almost all pregnant women (though if you haven’t already, check with your doctor to make sure this includes you).
- Free
- Accessible no matter where you live (within reason. Submarine captains might need a treadmill)
- Easy to do while you do other things that are important to you: talking to friends and family, listening to an audiobook or podcast, and finally learning Portuguese
- A way to naturally reduce blood pressure
Make sure you loop your doctor in with your plans and follow whatever glucose monitoring they advise. If your case is very mild, you may find that walking after meals is enough to control your sugar levels. If it doesn’t quite get you there, stay tuned for more natural ways to manage your gestational diabetes, soon!
In the meantime, let me know if you’ve tried walking after meals. How do you like it? What were your results?
1https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/basics/gestational.html
2https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-03.pdf
3https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-03.pdf
4(2021). Postprandial interval walking—effect on blood glucose in pregnant women with gestational diabetes. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology MFM, 3(6), 100440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajogmf.2021.100440
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