Afraid to go to the doctor, pregnant mother almost lost her baby because of high blood sugar

Ms. HTNL (41 years old, Da Nang) was transferred to Hoan My Danang Hospital by her family for emergency treatment in a state of severe respiratory failure, purple lips and extremities, struggling to breathe, rapid shallow breathing, profuse sweating, and leg cramps. Cold hands, lungs heard moist rales up to 2 peaks, blood pressure increased 240/130 mmHg.

Through the initial examination, the doctor noted that she had severe preeclampsia when she was pregnant for the third time, and the fetal echocardiogram was discrete. Upon admission, the patient suddenly became worse – cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, high risk of death for both mother and child at this time.

This is a very serious and life-threatening illness for both the mother and the unborn child. After 30 minutes, the doctor saved both mother and child. Women with a history of gestational diabetes, high blood pressure. The doctor said that just a few minutes late can lose both mother and baby.

Illustrated photo.

The case of Ms. NTH, (37 years old, Chuong My, Hanoi) was also hospitalized because of cold limbs and shallow breathing. Ms. H. is 31 weeks pregnant, her health is stable, but for more than 1 week, Ms. H. feels tired and nauseous.

Ms. H. thought she was tired due to morning sickness. When she went to the emergency room, the doctor said that Ms. H’s blood sugar was as high as 13 mmol/l when fasting. The cause is gestational diabetes, but the mother does not check her blood sugar.

Ms. H. shared that she only had an ultrasound at 22 weeks, waited until 32 weeks to have another ultrasound. Because of the fear of the epidemic, she was also afraid to go to the clinic for check-ups. Moreover, she also did not gain weight during pregnancy, when she saw the doctor reported an increase in blood sugar, she was also surprised.

BS.CKII Mai Hai Ly – Head of the obstetric examination team at Gia Dinh People’s Hospital, HCMC Diabetes mellitus is a heterogeneous metabolic disorder characterized by elevated plasma glucose due to defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both.

According to the American Endocrine Society, gestational diabetes is a condition associated with elevated maternal plasma glucose and an increased risk of adverse obstetric outcomes.

Gestational diabetes is increasing, but most pregnant women and the community do not yet fully understand this disease. The disease often has no obvious clinical symptoms, only symptoms of fatigue, nausea, so it is easy to be confused with symptoms of pregnancy.

According to Dr. Ly, if a pregnant woman with diabetes does not control her blood sugar well, it will cause many consequences for the mother and the fetus. The mother is prone to hypertension, pre-eclampsia – eclampsia, retinopathy, coronary artery disease, urinary tract infection, risk of real diabetes in the future… increased rates of miscarriage, stillbirth , premature birth, cesarean section.

For the fetus and newborn, gestational diabetes affects the development of the fetus such as birth defects, fetal growth arrest, spontaneous abortion, excessive fetal growth and fetal enlargement, stillbirth.

In particular, in neonates the risk of hypoglycaemia and neonatal metabolic diseases, respiratory distress syndrome, premature death, neonatal jaundice.

Long-term effects: Increased prevalence of obesity in children, early childhood onset of type 2 diabetes in adulthood, and psychomotor-motor disorders. Babies born to mothers with gestational diabetes have an 8-fold increased risk of diabetes and prediabetes between 19 and 27 years of age.

Therefore, Dr. Ly recommends that all pregnant women should be screened for gestational diabetes at 24 – 28 weeks of gestational age.

When the test results conclude that the pregnant woman has gestational diabetes, she will be carefully advised by her doctor about the risks, monitoring directions, diet, exercise for the pregnant woman, the goal of maintaining the blood sugar index as much as possible. as close to normal as possible.

To achieve this, pregnant women need to change their lifestyle, adjust their diet and exercise, and maintain a suitable weight gain for each stage of pregnancy.

Khanh Chi