Gestational diabetes - which diet rules do I follow?

[sophieo]

Hello,

I am 30 weeks pregnant with my first pregnancy, and I have just found out I have gestational diabetes.
I am trying to get some good info on what exactly I should/shouldn't be eating while still having a balanced diet, which includes all the important things I need in pregnancy.
I have read all the info on GI foods, low-sugar foods, etc, which have been written as a general guide for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, but is it OK to follow these guidelines with gestational diabetes too?
I am feeling rather confused as I've never had to think about my diet in terms of low-sugar but enough fat to absorb it, and I have been told by a dietician that I should avoid eating Weetabix/Bran Flakes with milk in the mornings, because of the sugar in the milk...this seems contradictory to the advice on here.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks!

 

[Northerner]

Hi Sophie, welcome to the forum 🙂 Yes, you should be fine to follow the GI principles - the aim is to eat food that will digest and release glucose in the blood slowly and steadily so that your blood sugar levels don't shoot up high. Things like Weetabix with milk are relatively high GI, so things like toast using seeded bread (Burgen is excellent) is a good substitute. A more sophisticated and practical version of GI is GL, so you might be interested in reading up about that - here are a couple of recommendations:

http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=7719

http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=7337

Hope all goes well with your pregnancy! Please do let us know how things are going, or if you have any other questions 🙂

p.s. I moved this to the pregnancy section so our mums would be more likely to spot it 🙂

 

[trophywench]

There's not much of any use to you in Weetabix unfortunately; because a lot of it gets removed in the processing, when they say 'with added whatever' they have only probably had to add it because they took it out in the first place, having said that I have one nearly every morning because I hate breakfast, W to me is comfort food - and of course, I can shoot for it.

Have they given you any meds or are they wanting you to cope by just diet?

Please also bear in mind there are more carbs in skimmed and semi-skimmed milk than in full fat milk! In fact watch out for a LOT of 'low fat' stuff because they have a very nasty habit of piling in the corn starch to replace the fat, so they replace it with carbohydrate. Need to read labels!

The only good thing is - not long to go, now! and you will get extra scans in case babe gets too big.

 

[sophieo]

thanks

Thanks for your advice. They've now put me on insulin and it still doesn't seem to be helping much!!! So they've upped my dose before breakfast and before bedtime, here's hoping it helps.
I'm off the Weetabix now! Just having to get used to eating bread/toast with just marg & Marmite for breakfast - something which I feel I'm forcing down at 6am! Only got another 3 days of work to go though so won't need to plan around work times much longer.

The hard thing about lots of diabetes advice is it's all about low fat things to control weight, which is something the doc has told me not to do. So now, for example, when I'm trying to find out if things like peanuts are OK to eat, all the diabetes advice I can find is about the fat content and not sugar...any ideas? The reason I'd like to know is I LOVE peanut butter and have found some with no added sugar.

Also, what about things like eating granary bread? Isn't it still made with some white flour? Does this mean I have to avoid it altogether?

I'm off to treat myself to a cup of tea, one of the only treats I'm still allowed!

 

[gail2]

sophieo welcome to the forum cant add to much thats been said, they are full of support on here
and by the way congratulations on your pregnancy
gail

 

[Copepod]

Welcome Sophieo - I know this will sound like passing the buck, but the best advice is to ask the staff who are looking after both your pregnancy and your diabetes, and ideally get a referral to a specialist dietician. There are so many things to remember about foods in pregnancy, let alone when combined with diabetes, and there's the addition issue of matching insulin doses to carbohydrate intake. So, I wouldn't want to give you any misleading information. The advice for gestational diabetes is different to what people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes have to do during pregnancy, and different to having T1D or T2D when not pregnant.