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The goal of any dietary plan is to maintain levels of glucose in the blood. Therefore, foods rich in simple sugars – candy, cookies, sugary snacks and non-diet sodas – must be limited. A healthful, varied diet rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables is the best way of ensuring overall health for your child.
Once you are diagnosed as having gestational diabetes, you and your health care providers will want to know more about your day-to-day blood sugar levels.
A daily exercise program is an important part of a healthy pregnancy. Daily exercise helps you feel better and reduces stress. In addition, being physically fit protects against back pain, and maintains muscle tone, strength, and endurance. For women with gestational diabetes, exercise is especially important.
Women with diabetes can have healthy babies, but it takes planning ahead and effort. Pregnancy can make both high and low blood glucose levels happen more often. It can make diabetic eye disease and diabetic kidney disease worse. High glucose levels during pregnancy are dangerous for the baby, too.
Diabetes can cause diabetic kidney disease (also called diabetic nephropathy), which can lead to kidney failure. There’s a lot you can do to take charge and prevent kidney problems. A recent study shows that controlling your blood glucose can prevent or delay the onset of kidney disease. Keeping your blood pressure under control is also important.
Strong lower-back muscles and abdominals work together in maintaining a pain-free and healthy back. These exercises will help strengthen the muscles of the lower back, but it is important that you begin your exercises slowly and increase levels gradually. Always begin any exercise program with stretching. Talk to your doctor before attempting any exercises, especially if you are already experiencing back pain.
Like other chronic illnesses, diabetes mellitus poses a wide range of problems for patients and their family members. These problems include pain, hospitalization, changes in lifestyle and vocation, physical disabilities, and threatened survival. Direct psychological consequences can arise from any one of these factors, making it harder for patients to treat their diabetes and live productive, enjoyable lives.
The effect of regular physical exercise alone on metabolic control in NIDDM is quite variable and frequently of small magnitude. Greater improvement in glucose homeostasis can usually be obtained by weight loss. Despite the relatively small impact of exercise demonstrated to date, regular physical exercise may be a therapeutic component supplementing diet in selected patients.
Tell your dentist you have diabetes and ask him or her to show you how to keep your teeth and gums healthy.
The popularity of walking as a fitness activity is growing by leaps and bounds. Low risk and easy to start, walking has proved its health benefits in numerous studies. An eight-year study of 13,000 people found that those who walked 30 minutes a day had a significantly lower risk of premature death than those who rarely exercised.
For the individual child and the whole family, diabetes changes life. As parents of children with diabetes, we know that. But we also know this: diabetes may change your family’s life, but it needn’t become your family’s life.
Fat is a nutrient that is both much feared and much loved. It is a source of pleasure, guilt and confusion for many people. While eating some fat is both necessary and health promoting, eating too much fat is detrimental. When over-consumed, fat may contribute to some major health risks: heart disease, cancer, excess body fat, high blood pressure and adult onset diabetes.