The test for glucose tolerance should be taken every future mother at 24-28 weeks of pregnancy. This is a blood test for sugar, which is done in order to exclude gestational diabetes or what is called this disease - diabetes of pregnant women.
Indications for an oral glucose tolerance test
Refuse to analyze the doctors strongly do not recommend to protect themselves and the future baby. And yet some women prefer to remain in ignorance and not to exhaust their body with another additional study.
But if the future mother gets into the risk zone, she will have to pass the test for glucose tolerance without fail. Gestational diabetes factors are considered to be:
- overweight pregnant (excess weight is considered if it exceeds the norm by fifteen or more percent);
- late pregnancy;
- diabetes mellitus in one of the blood relatives of a prospective mother;
- infectious diseases of the genitourinary system in the anamnesis;
- stillbirths or miscarriages;
- macrosomia - weight exceeding four kilograms, in the previous baby;
- late gestosis.
It is necessary to take TSH even if during the previous pregnancy a woman already had gestational diabetes.
How is the glucose tolerance test performed?
A huge lack of research - for which he was disliked by many ladies - his duration. That's why specialists call it a two- or three-hour test. For many pregnant women, the fact that they will have to spend several hours in the laboratory becomes a real shock.
Before you take the test for glucose tolerance, you need to specially prepare. An important condition is to carry out a study on an empty stomach. Last time you can eat only eight hours before sampling the analysis. And three days before the study will have to slightly change their diet: to exclude from it fatty, too spicy, sweet food. To overeat during the preparatory period, experts also strongly do not recommend. Otherwise, the test results will be unreliable, and it will have to be repeated - a good argument to follow all instructions, is not it?
Immediately before the test for glucose tolerance, the doctor will warn you what kind of research you will experience. From this will depend on how much glucose you need to drink before the procedure:
- before the hour test - 50 grams;
- two hours - 75 grams;
- three hours - 100 grams.
Dilute the powder in non-carbonated mineral or boiled water. If desired, a little lemon juice can be added to the mixture.
The very algorithm for conducting a test for glucose tolerance is simple:
- The pregnant woman comes to the laboratory and takes blood from her.
- After blood sampling, you should drink the necessary amount of glucose and spend some time alone.
- After an hour, two or three, a second analysis is taken.
Normal is the glucose value, not exceeding 5.5 mmol / l in the first analysis and 7.8 mmol / l - in the second.
With increased amounts of sugar in the blood , the analysis is carried out in a couple of days again. And if the result does not change, the pregnant woman is sent for examination to the endocrinologist.
In what cases does the glucose tolerance test fail?
Research can not always be done. You will have to transfer the procedure when:
- signs of early toxicosis;
- exacerbation of chronic pancreatitis;
- acute inflammation;
- infectious disease;
- the need to comply with bed rest;
- syndrome of a resected stomach.