Gestational diabetes is the form of diabetes that shows up during the pregnancy to non-diabetic women. Symptoms of gestational diabetes aren’t very clear and usually they can be mistaken with pregnancy related stuff.

Gestational diabetes affects up to 6% of all the pregnant women and is caused by the inability of the organism to produce the necessary amount of insulin required to maintain normal levels of glucose in the blood. This type of diabetes is different from any other because it appears during pregnancy and it disappears after.

Most of the women who suffer from gestational diabetes don’t even realize it because the symptoms are similar to the normal pregnancy ones.

Let’s go through the symptoms of gestational diabetes and see if they can’t really be told apart by the pregnancy ones.

Increased thirst: this is caused by the high levels of sugar in the blood and it’s the main indicator for this type of diabetes. Excessive thirst is not necessarily a pregnancy related symptom, though it might be considered one.

The need to urinate often: this is the most common pregnancy symptom and almost all pregnant women experience it. The baby is growing in the uterus and as is getting bigger it will press on the bladder causing this effect. If it is associated with the excessive thirst then you can consult a doctor to see what the problem is. Keep in mind that frequent urination leads to dehydration so don’t wait too long before taking necessary measures. Fatigue: this is another common sign for a pregnancy, especially in the first and last trimester. If you’re experiencing only this symptom then you won’t be able to discover the diabetes.

Recurrent vaginal infections: these can be caused by several things and it’s really hard to pin them down as a symptom for diabetes, but if they are too often and you can’t find the cause then you should get tested for diabetes too.

There are few cases in which you should get tested anyway, to make sure you don’t have gestational diabetes even if you don’t have any symptoms:

- if you’ve had gestational diabetes in a previous pregnancy

- cases of any type of diabetes in your family

- overweight women

- women over 35 years old

- women who smoke

There are cases when the diabetes is not diagnosed at all, but there are few signs that may lead into that direction:

- child with a higher weight at birth

- multiple spontaneous miscarriegies in the past

- child dead at birth with no established cause