1) Don't over-do the milk. Yes milk has a good amount of protein, but it also has a lot more sugar in it than you realize. If you are going to drink milk, limit yourself to a glass a day and drink it with one of your snacks during daytime hours. Do not drink your milk with a meal or with a snack before bed because it will likely make your blood sugar jump and stay up too high - drinking milk before bed can even affect your reading after breakfast the next morning.
2) Think about what HEALTHY fats you can add to your meals without adding too many carbs. If you are on a specific diet to manage your blood sugar, chances are you feel pretty limited and sometimes question if you are getting enough calories. Your care provider may have even told you that you need to drastically limit your calorie intake because being overweight increases your risk of having gestational diabetes and having a hard time controlling your blood sugar levels.
If you are a healthy weight, you need to be really careful about limiting your calories during pregnancy. It could be very hard on your body to do so, so add some healthy fats, like avocado or coconut oil, for example and make sure you write down what you had and seriously evaluate how each change you make influences your readings. If you put a little coconut oil on your toast with your eggs in the morning and your sugar is still where you want it to be after breakfast, then you know you can do this again. Another example would be adding a quarter of an avocado to your sandwich at lunch. And I'll say it again, just make sure you are looking at what you ate and stop doing anything that is making your blood sugar jump higher than it should be.
3) Make sure that whatever eating schedule you are maintaining during your pregnancy you continue during labor. Even if you don't feel like eating, it is really really important to keep doing so. It can be downright dangerous for your baby to have to deal with you not eating, especially if your gestational diabetes has not been really well controlled. Your baby is used to releasing extra insulin to be able to cope with the higher blood sugar that comes along with gestational diabetes. If you skip a meal, your baby is still going to release the insulin in his body that he is used to releasing to cope, and if there isn't sugar from what you ate for it to interact with, his blood sugar is going to dip - possibly to an extremely dangerous level. This is also why babies born to moms with gestational diabetes need to have their blood sugar checked a number of times in the hours following birth. They need to make sure his blood sugar is staying at a reasonable and safe level.
If this was helpful to you, keep an eye out for my Nurtured Mommy E-Zine edition on meal planning for stabilizing blood sugar, coming soon! (Sign up for the E-Zine in the box to the right.) And if you have another question about managing gestational diabetes, or if you have any of your own great tips to add, just post a comment below!
2) Think about what HEALTHY fats you can add to your meals without adding too many carbs. If you are on a specific diet to manage your blood sugar, chances are you feel pretty limited and sometimes question if you are getting enough calories. Your care provider may have even told you that you need to drastically limit your calorie intake because being overweight increases your risk of having gestational diabetes and having a hard time controlling your blood sugar levels.
If you are a healthy weight, you need to be really careful about limiting your calories during pregnancy. It could be very hard on your body to do so, so add some healthy fats, like avocado or coconut oil, for example and make sure you write down what you had and seriously evaluate how each change you make influences your readings. If you put a little coconut oil on your toast with your eggs in the morning and your sugar is still where you want it to be after breakfast, then you know you can do this again. Another example would be adding a quarter of an avocado to your sandwich at lunch. And I'll say it again, just make sure you are looking at what you ate and stop doing anything that is making your blood sugar jump higher than it should be.
3) Make sure that whatever eating schedule you are maintaining during your pregnancy you continue during labor. Even if you don't feel like eating, it is really really important to keep doing so. It can be downright dangerous for your baby to have to deal with you not eating, especially if your gestational diabetes has not been really well controlled. Your baby is used to releasing extra insulin to be able to cope with the higher blood sugar that comes along with gestational diabetes. If you skip a meal, your baby is still going to release the insulin in his body that he is used to releasing to cope, and if there isn't sugar from what you ate for it to interact with, his blood sugar is going to dip - possibly to an extremely dangerous level. This is also why babies born to moms with gestational diabetes need to have their blood sugar checked a number of times in the hours following birth. They need to make sure his blood sugar is staying at a reasonable and safe level.
If this was helpful to you, keep an eye out for my Nurtured Mommy E-Zine edition on meal planning for stabilizing blood sugar, coming soon! (Sign up for the E-Zine in the box to the right.) And if you have another question about managing gestational diabetes, or if you have any of your own great tips to add, just post a comment below!
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