Hello everyone! I’m 15 weeks pregnant and actually had pretty good control of my sugars in the first trimester. Granted it was a roller coaster most days, but my highs would come down quickly and I never seemed to have too many lows. Pre-pregnacy my A1C was 6.5 and my last A1C taken around 9 or 10 weeks pregnant was 5.7. The past couple weeks have been a nightmare. I have a hard time getting my highs down, my carb to insulin ratio seems to change daily, and I really feel like I’m losing all control over this disease. I know as the placenta grows, the hormones it pumps out makes us more insulin resistant, I just had no idea it would start this soon. I’m terrified of losing my baby boy. Does anyone have any good meal plans that are easy to follow? I think the best option right now is to really limit my carbs. I’ve heard baby does need them to grow so I’m just looking for some ideas/advice. What works and what doesn’t? I just want a healthy baby, and June seems so far away
Take it one day at a time and one meal at a time. The second trimester is often the hardest because it’s the time of most rapid change for both you and the baby.
For me the key to being successful was planning ahead and keeping a routine. Eat each meal and snack at relatively the same time every day. Pull together a list of foods that you like to eat and how many carbs are in each serving. Figure out how many carbs is reasonable for you to eat at each meal without having your blood sugar spike or come down too slowly. During pregnancy I found that for me this was 40-50g carbs per meal and 15-20g carbs per snack. Pay attention to serving/portion sizes in order to calculate carbs correctly.
If you are working, take your lunch and snacks with you every day so you aren’t stuck eating something unplanned. Always have something on hand if you dip low, Skittles are a favorite since they are common and have 1g carb apiece.
Foods that come to mind are eggs, cheese, meats, non-starchy vegetables, leafy greens, greek style yogurt without added sugar, low-glycemic fruits, nuts, small sized whole grain bread, and legumes. Stay hydrated.
You might find it helpful to log your food intake, insulin doses, and blood sugar readings to see if there are any foods you aren’t tolerating well or trends you notice. I use the mySugr app but even a simple notebook will do.
My little one turns 7 in a couple of weeks and was born full term at 7lbs, 2oz with zero complications for either of us.
Best wishes!
Thank you so much for your response. I’ll definitly try logging more, that might help a lot. I have a CGM which has been a huge lifesaver, but honestly today has just been terrible. I haven’t had ANY carbs and my blood sugar spiked to 190 and I can’t get it down. I’ll try upping my Lantus dose as well, but that typically results in a couple night time lows.
Diabetes is absolutely genetic in most cases. My disease was an auto immune disease, so my immune system attacked my pancreas. No one on either side of my families have type 1 or 2 diabetes. The odds of my child developing diabetes is likely the same as anyone else’s; however, pregnancy with diabetes puts baby at a high risk for a number of complications. As for why I’m choosing to have kids… I’ve always wanted kids, and even if I was putting my child at risk for type 1, this disease is very manageable. Personally I’d rather live with diabetes than not exist at all and it’s very possible to have a healthy pregnancy with this disease. I’m struggling to stay in range now, but during my first trimester I was doing pretty well. I just need to get a better hold of my sugars during the later trimesters.
Try to avoid the hypos if you can, my OB and I settled on slightly higher BGs in order to avoid going low. More frequent, smaller meals can help even things out. I found a little bedtime snack of a couple Triscuits and cheese helped prevent the overnight lows.
There will be days where the BGs are stubborn and don’t come down. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Your BG may have spiked because you didn’t eat anything, it sounds counter intuitive but your body may think you are trying to starve yourself. Try eating a day or two of very low carbs and see if that improves anything for you.
Thanks for the reply! What did you and your endo settle on if you don’t mind me asking? Mine wants my fasting between 70-90 and under 120 2 hours after I eat. Maybe I’m just beating myself up trying to achieve that.
I’ve never heard of that! I’ll look into it, thanks!
Good Luck. We are going on the journey with you. Please keep us posted if you like.
We settled on 80-90 for fasting and 130-140 two hours post meal and 120 three hours post meal. Just that little bit extra stopped the hypos which were scary.