Ep 160. Tips for Preventing Gestational Diabetes

Today, your favorite midwives discuss the importance of proactive approaches in preventing gestational diabetes through lifestyle choices and healthcare support. You can expect them to dive into:

-Benefits of Early Prenatal Care

-Importance of Blood Sugar Monitoring

-Hormone Optimization through Diet

00:00 Introduction

00:29 Benefits of Midwifery Care

01:33 Challenges in Accessing Midwifery Care

04:00 Listener Review: Alli Weird 93

25:14 Screening and Risk Factors for Gestational Diabetes

17:48 Tips for Preventing Gestational Diabetes

30:56 Importance of Hormone Balance

Links to all the extra good stuff:

Fullscript Protocol for Gestational Diabetes: HERE
Real Food for Gestational Diabetes: HERE
Childbirth Education Wait List: HERE
Join our email community: HERE
Submit your answer-on-the-show questions: HERE

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to At Home with Kelly and Tiffany, where naturally minded women gather together as we pursue simplicity and confidence in health alternatives, so we can show up better in our busy lives and feel more at home in our bodies. Join your favorite home birth midwife duo for conversation, candor, and community. You're at home with Kelly and Tiffany. I am Kelly I'm Tiffany. And today we get to talk about preventing gestational diabetes. I am extra excited to talk about this because we get this question all of the time. We are very focused on being proactive, both before pregnancy, during pregnancy. And this is one of those things that most women that care that they get is very reactive. And so it's fun to be able to share that info about. Prioritizing and being proactive. Oh, absolutely. And look, I think it's just where midwifery shines. In this space where we're like, whoa, actually do have more time, more energy, more care. I have a greater wheelhouse for alternatives. I have training and experience that allows me to support you holistically. It's just a better care model all the way around. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes we're told that we sound like we're biased and we're like, Yep. 100%. We are. Every woman I think deserves this type of care, no matter where they want to birth or whatever their plans are or whatever the situation is with high risk, low risk, whatever. More women need this access to this type of care. Yeah. Unfortunately not everybody has access to midwifery care also. Unfortunately. We. We inadvertently all of us contribute to proliferating the medical model of care in this country. With all of the many, many factors that allow that to be the, the 98%. Place for women to receive care. So I think the best that we can do these two little midwives in this corner of the world. His share the information that we have allow people to understand that there are alternatives that there, that there are things that you can do to. Potentially have some empowerment in some of these areas and just let that be, let that be a truth that exists. And what you do with that is going to be, you know, up to you ladies. Up to you. Love it. Okay. So today we have a review to read. I am so excited because in between. The groups of podcasts that we have recorded in this season so far, and then us now. Doing another chunk of recordings. We have gotten so many wonderful reviews so I'm excited about the review that I get to read today, but I'm also anticipating. The next nine episodes that we do are also going to have amazing reviews to read. And I just wish I could read them all right now because I did review them all just now. And. I. I know we keep saying this. I realized that this is something we're repeating over and over, but it truly. Allows us to continue because your words are a fuel to my soul. And again, I'm sorry. We have to keep saying this, but sometimes I'm wondering, is this. And does this impact anything at all? Like, is this worth the effort, time to like create episodes, record them, edit them, get them out there. Talk about them. All of that. And at the end of the day, like we're not, we're not hopping into look at the reviews every day. And so when we do take a moment to look and you guys take a moment out of your busy lives. Just to encourage us. It really does mean a lot. That's my it's my love language too. It's like words of affirmation. I'm like, oh, thank you. Just for giving me the fuel agree. Yep. Okay. So today I'm going to read a review it's by Alli weird 93. You're weird. And this is how we know this is our person. Weirdo. Keeping it weird in the actual handle and her. Title of this review. Of course, it's five stars. You guys know we will not read anything less. That title is my favorite show. Oh. There's a lot of shows out there. I've gotten a lot of favorite shows. Yep. This is one of the, this. Is my favorite one that we create. But I do like listening to other ones. Yeah. There's there's a lot to listen to and to be called the favorite. That's saying something. I treasure absolutely treasure. Okay. Allie says I wait every week to listen to this podcast. They cover pretty much every question a mom to be has. Not only that they respond on their Instagram and offer help or resources. The work that they do has inspired me to try and be a doula. Thanks. You guys. Oh, That's super sweet. So good, Allie. Thank you. You know, if you let us know that we read your review, we will buy you a drink. All for you. What's what's great about that too, is we hear mention of Instagram and I've been on Instagram the last, like little chunk of time. And. It really does matter that we. That we pay attention to it and like interact in that space. There are so many women who say something similar like that, of like, oh, the information that you shared, or just like the response to a comment or to a DM, like changed so much for me, or I can't even believe that you did that and took the time out and I'm like, yeah, this. This takes a lot of time out, but like, it's, it's like we were saying it's worth it because then we get to encourage people who may not have access to. Information. Yeah. And I think like knowing that there's a place to go from here. Podcasting, you know, we've said it before. It's like very one-sided, but there are we've live in other spaces where you can interact with us and get more information. And I would say Instagram is probably the highest value of content that we provide. I think the podcast is really great because we can deliver a lot of information in a short period of time. And women can like ingest that while they listen. But Instagram has a very high volume of. Information and interaction. Yeah, absolutely. Like a steady. Yes. Yeah, pretty much daily. But you can anticipate something happening there, something. So join us over there. We're at beautiful one. midwifery.com. Nope. Beautiful one midwifery. Yeah. Beautiful one. A bit of a freak. Yeah. But the, but if you want to go to our website, you just put a.com in there and, and that can, somewhere on there, we'll link you to our Instagram. You'll find it. I trust that you will. Smart lady. Okay. Before we get going on preventing gestational diabetes, I'm going to draw everyone's attention to a full script protocol. Call that we have all about blood sugar balancing. And it's just so pertinent to what we're talking about here today, because of course, gestational diabetes is a disease process of blood sugar, instability, and any single woman at any stage in her life can improve outcomes and health and. Absolutely everything with blood sugar stability. And there's a lot of ways to do that. We're going to talk about some of those strategies today, but this protocol is available on our Fullscript account. That is our professional supplement dispensary. We pass along 25%. Discounts on these professionals supplements. So you're getting. Really high grade. Valuable supplementation, but you're getting it for a fraction of the retail cost. And we're really excited to be able to partner with Fullscript and pass that along to you guys. So that link is going to live in our show notes. You can jump into there and see that protocol. But just for those of you who are curious about what is on a blood sugar balancing protocol. I will bring it up here for you. I will say also the protocols, like just the access to some of the plans and protocols in there, like all of the, the. The information that we have listed, the supplements that we have listed, how much, how often, what that all looks like is listed in there, like in the information. And that's just free to look at. Right. And so you can sign up, check all of these things out, but it's everything from like menopause support to fibroid stuff to. Nausea in pregnancy, like a million different ideas and recommends. Commendations and stuff. So it is, that is a high value place to. If you were looking for. Just holistic support as well. Yeah. And just for, just to know that we have our stamp of approval on those items that we have thoughtfully curated, what we think is the very best vitamin D the very best. You know, immune boosting supplements, the very best multivitamin, et cetera. You guys have that opportunity to be in our clinician brains with some of those pieces. So here's what we have in blood sugar. Balancing support. Protocol on Fullscript. It's a chromium. Grassfed beef pancreas. Cinnamon. Trace mineral drops, magnesium glycinate. Ginger extract in turmeric. That is a well-rounded recommendation. And it has like, here's how much you should be taking a day when you know how many to take of that thing a day. All of that's in there. Yeah. So you don't have to be connected to the protocol in order to take advantage of obviously the supplements that we just listed out to you, you can, you can find those anywhere, find those anywhere. Absolutely. But if you want to see the dosing and. And the really quality. Formulas, we have it for you waiting there. Yeah. And. I have price pointed a few things just for my own benefit as well. And while sometimes Amazon and whatever has sales. Fullscript wins. Every time. Yep. Especially with the discount. Helps a lot. Okay, so let's jump in here. Why does somebody want to even avoid gestational diabetes in the first place? What is like the gravity of that? Yeah, I mean, an actual diagnosis of that is going. To impact severely. The. The options that are ahead of you, the recommendations that are given to you, the potential complications that can arise with you with baby, with your pregnancy, with your birth, with your postpartum. Awesome. You do kind of, you get into this next tier of, um, risk status. And so. I'm trying to desire to not only have the healthiest pregnancy possible, but the lowest risk one and the lowest intervention one possible is, is a worthy. Goal. Yeah. I mean, like there's two pieces of this in my mind. One is. The actual real problem and risk that is associated with your health and your baby's health. If you do truly have gestational diabetes. But the bigger piece quite honestly, is the politics. Around this thing. And I mean, gosh, that's not going to surprise anybody who has listened to us. Digest other pieces of medical management. But you can be diagnosed with gestational diabetes for. REL something that is relatively easy to correct. And you're in a care model where you were not going to be given the resources or the time or the patients in order to correct that piece. And then having that label, which you may not have the actual risk, or you might have a growing risk throughout your pregnancy. That's not being addressed. Properly because they're like, oh, you have gestational diabetes here. Do this, eat this, take this medication. Oh. And by the way, Now you're going to get slapped with this label, which can include. Additional surveillance for baby which leads to potentially higher interventions. Which is you know, most practitioners are going to wreck. Strongly recommend that women with gestational diabetes are induced at 39 weeks. And that just comes with a whole other cascade of issues for women. And so. That is the issue that we end up dealing with more often. Is keeping women away from that diagnosis. So we were working with somebody. Earlier this. This year who had true. Blood sugar instability issues. And she asked us in one of her appointments. Do I just do national diabetes. I'd like, we kind of, haven't been hot on it a little bit. Right. It was like, At first told her like, well, no, Well, then I was like, well, I'm not writing it in your chart. But yes. Yes. Like what is your body doing in this pregnancy? Yeah. Like it, and especially if you were just left to your own devices or continuing on with. Eating, whatever it is that you felt like you wanted or not. You know, following along with what your blood sugar is actually doing. Yeah, you would you, and you would noticeably start to snowball. Into more complicated situation. Without having to step in and intervene and change the course of some things. Yeah. So like, there's this, there's this piece of like a, I don't know, like Figuring things out from a clinical perspective, you know, like when we're trying to decide. Like, was that a hemorrhage? Was it not? Was that a shoulder dystocia? It was the not, you know, like what's the, what's the line there. And sometimes I tell myself it's when you have to intervene to course correct. Anytime. You're like, oh, we actually mean to do something here in order to get you back on a better path or to get you off of this dangerous path, then you're like, yeah, we, we had to do something. The only reason that you're not potentially like in this giant gestational diabetes pit is because we're doing all the things and we're keeping, we're keeping it normal and stable for you. So without those interventions, she absolutely would have had. Additional complication. Yeah. And she was able to hand it back in with diet, with supplements, with the things that we're kind of chatting about today. But what I found the most interesting is that if she wasn't in our care, the recommendations for what would be available to her and what the next steps would be and how she should be eating probably not too many recommendations of supplements and. You know, other pieces of lifestyle stuff wouldn't have been offered or wouldn't have been a part of the picture. And I say that pretty confidently knowing how many clients we've had, who have had the diagnosis or who have like flirted with the diagnose. Gnosis in a previous pregnancy and then learning some new things and implementing those things in pregnancy and being like, oh wow. That, that those recommendations I was given were. Actually hurting me. Or, you know, kind of leading me further into This gestational diabetes. Like you said pit. Yeah. And so the way that we ended up actually developing any type of response to preventing gestational diabetes was. Was taking care of women who had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes and future pregnancy is and saying, is there anything that I can do to keep this from happening again? Again, because I think if you asked a traditional care provider in a medical setting, they would be like, well, it just happens to some people and doesn't happen to others. And so it might happen to you again, it might not. And it's like, absolutely not. Like let's. Let's look at some of those. Let's look at some of those pieces to try to understand. What's happening metabolically and. Give some context to a preventative approach. Yeah, absolutely. I really do see. C also like just this idea of Is, am I fully having an issue here? Like it, should I be diagnosed? Do I need insulin? Like going down that route versus what can I do to be as proactive as possible to help decrease the potential of getting there. And that's really what we're talking about because. You could potentially do everything that we were saying. Perfect. We, and something may be. Up in your body that like, I am sorry. You may need. Some extra medical support for this issue. With that being said, Everybody that we have walked through utilizing. This and some people have to work. Incredibly hard that we've been able to kind of. Of course, correct. As, as much as possible to keep things safe. Yeah. And everyone listening knows that like I am not the perfect midwife. It's been demonstrated many, many times, but one of em, one of the largest frustrations. Of my career. Has been working really. Really really hard on this piece with some people. I don't know if we have worked harder with some of our clients. Then try that, like trying to preserve. A home birth as an option, a safe option for them then. W then trying to keep blood sugar stabilized. And some of that I think is like, food can be triggering for some people. The idea of changing, almost everything that you potentially are doing. Some for some women it's like, oh, I just need to take this particular thing out. Out or eat some fat with my protein, that breakfast and everything is fine. And then some women it's own. No, no, no. Don't keep going back to that same thing that you read should be fine because clearly your body isn't doesn't want to. Or isn't responding well to it. And so having to actually change potentially the entire day of eating and the way of eating and the amount and the timing and the, all of that, like. It is a big ask, but that is that's part of this agreement that we come into with our clients. Like, yeah, we may have to do some hard stuff together and it's going to be worth it. And if you don't think it's worth it. Then this. Partnership. Ownership is potentially not. Not worth it or, you know what I mean? Like maybe you do need. Something else. Yeah, it brings up a lot of stuff. Yeah. Communication. Habits, how you deal with stress. There's so many factors, right? That are in pregnancy already. And then having a complication that needs to be managed. Not just every single day, but every single meal. And I don't know about you, but I felt very deeply that when I was pregnant, food was potentially sometimes many days. My only source of true comfort. Yes, this is where my happiness lies. Yep. In this meal. Yep. Oh, okay. So when women come into our practice, we have. Way of screening every buddy. For many things, but especially for potential complications. And one of those is gestational diabetes. And so women who have a set of risk factors, we're just going to address them. We're just going to say like, oh, well you have a couple of these things that are somewhat marked against you. Metabolically. Let's be smart about how we approach that in the beginning of pregnancy. So there's like this there's a little bit of this. I don't know what you would call it. Trend. There's a trend around that I'm noticing where women are not engaging in prenatal care as early as possible. They're kind of like just waiting for. I don't know, they don't want to be inconvenient. They don't want to go see someone in person. They don't, I don't know what it is exactly. But this, this type of screening is one of the reasons why you should get prenatal care as soon as possible, because there's things that can be flagged. In your history. In your family history in your medical history, just in what is happening in your body in the very beginning of pregnancy that we can work on. Of course correcting to avoid complications later. Yeah. I mean, we've done stuff with women who are six weeks pregnant and they're like, okay, here's, here's the information that we got from your lab draw. Here's the stuff that you have told us or your previous experiences or whatever. Here's here's what we can do moving forward. And here's a plan to put in place. Oh, that's a huge amount of time that we have to work on this. Like that is, that is an absolute benefit and a bit of a luxury. Too. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So here are the things we're looking for, for women as we're screening them in their initial visit. Someone who scores higher on their hemoglobin A1C. So 5.7 is considered to be pre-diabetic anybody who gives us a value of like 5.4 or higher. We're kind of like, well, you're teetering towards this area that you potentially have not had blood sugar stability. In these past few months leading up to pregnancy. And so that puts you at a greater risk for developing gestational diabetes or just blood sugar instability in general, which goes along with a host of other pieces in pregnancy, including can make. The morning sickness, more severe can make mood swings more severe can make sleep difficult. There's so many things that blood sugar stability. Contributes to somebody who has a history of gestational diabetes, of course, or insulin resistance or. Women who have PCO S that. That all kind of gets lumped in with like, oh, there's some things going on here that we need to check in on like the health of your pancreas and how your body handles things. Metabolically. A family history of diabetes, or if your mom or your aunts or your sisters have had gestational diabetes, somebody close to you in your family line. That will increase your risk of potentially having some issues also. And then anybody who is obese or more technically has a BMI over 26 is in a higher risk category too, because obviously there's just. More metabolic potential going on there. Yeah. And so if you see yourself checking any of those boxes, one or more of those it's something to keep just on your radar. Certainly not saying this is your future, but like these definitely have been correlated with a higher risk. And I think what's, what's helpful to remember too is also. When you are pregnant, you may not have. Symptoms either. So a lot of women will be like, well, yeah. Yeah, that may be higher on that particular, like, my A1C may be a little bit higher, but like I've S I sleep great. I don't feel any like blood sugar crashes or I don't feel, you know, I feel really good or whatever. You may. You may still have some blood sugar instability happening and not necessarily have. Some like glaring signs and, you know, red flags waving in your everyday life. So it can be really helpful to dig a little bit deeper and try to understand a bit more about what's actually going on in your body. Yeah. And if you're somebody who is not pregnant yet, and you do have some of these risk factors before you even get pregnant, this is absolutely something that should be worked on before. You even get pregnant because women who have blood sugar, instability issues, they can pass that. Come on to their children and pregnancy. Then of course, like that increases your baby's life long risk of developing diabetes and their life. And. It, anyone who has gestational diabetes and pregnancy also has an increased chance of developing type two diabetes later in their life. I mean, it's just an important thing to pay attention to as women across the board. so we could get into a million different aspects of this, like in terms of testing options and. All of the things. What we really want to talk about though, is that you can take home some really foundational pieces of like, what can I actually, what can I actually do about this information? So we're not necessarily talking about. The imaging in pregnancy or like glue Cola drinks or whatever, just mostly taking this idea of like, what can you do to actually prevent this. While you're sitting at home listening to this. Now I think the greatest tool that women have is seeing the correlation between what they eat and how their blood sugar responds to it in. Live moments of what they're actually eating every single day, because that is going to influence. Absolutely everything. And everybody has a little bit of a different reaction to different. Types of food. I mean, some women can eat three cups of rice and have zero issue and some women can have, you know, Like one bite of. Banana and be not. Okay. And that was part of what we've, that's part of the fine tuning that kind of ends up happening with women with blood sugar, instability, and pregnancy is just playing around with foods and seeing like what's gonna work for you. What's not. So repeat having. Having early and repeat screens of blood glucose checks at home. That means getting a monitor. Getting familiar with how to check your blood sugar at home, doing it at regular intervals, especially if you have foods that are high sugar, high carb Hi glucose. And you want to see how your body's actually. Reacting to that. Yeah. That is probably the best indicator of like, what exactly is going on because you get to see in real time what your body is actually doing with that. And again, if we're talking about preventing and you're potentially not even pregnant yet. Of course things can like change in pregnancy and how your body is responding to things. But if you get really comfortable with, Hey, this is generally how my body responds to things. You are going to go into pregnancy much more confident on how to manage these pieces yourself rather than giving up that sort of power. To somebody else. So this is, this is like for so many reasons. A really helpful. I guess kind of rhythm to get into, I personally will ch I'll go on like little tangents every so often and just kind of check what's going on with my own blood sugar as I've had. Kind of instability or like resistance type things that have happened in the past. And so it's very helpful for me to just make sure, like, am I continuing to be on the right track? Even though pregnancy isn't on my radar. Because this matters so much in so many areas of life. Yep. Absolutely. So then the other piece that we want women to kind of like adopt. In any phase of life, but especially if you're in the beginning of a pregnancy or entering into pregnancy, trying to avoid. Gestational diabetes is modifying your style of eating. And this is something that I'm constantly refining myself, but I went on vacation With a bunch of family members, like a bunch of our cousin group went to Greece a couple of years ago. And I'm on vacation and I'm eating very vacation E yet at the end of the vacation, one of my cousins texted me and she's like, can we talk about the way you were eating? Because it seemed like you were very intentional about certain pieces. And I think I need that because there was an ease in which you were able to navigate your food options. And you were still able to enjoy everything that you wanted to, but it looked like you were really purposeful with some of those pieces. And I was, I didn't even think about it. I'm just like, oh good. All that's a habit now of mine that I just. Just eat for glucose. So stability. Citi. No matter where I'm at or what I'm doing. I just know. How to pair foods together, how to choose lower glycaemic options, how to make sure that there's always a lot of protein and fat. Especially if I'm enjoying hyper higher card foods and just be eating as much real food as possible, just fueling my body well with like good food choices. Yeah. And like what a, what a sweet thing to hear, like What your perception was just, I'm enjoying myself. I'm not withholding anything, but I'm doing so wisely. And I think a lot of times when we start talking about, okay, let's modify food, let's look at, you know, what. You should be eating. I think people start thinking about, okay, well, all the. Things that I can't eat now. And so if we start to shift to, to think about a more positively, how can I eat to balance my blood sugar? How can I eat in a way that like my body will respond? Well, this idea of this low-glycemic index kind of foods. When you're able to focus a little bit more about what, what you can eat or how to implement supportive pieces, if you're eating things that potentially, you know, Maybe this doesn't fall into this whole blood sugar supportive thing, but like you mentioned, I know how to pair it well, so I am not feeling like I'm completely devoid of all joy. In my food choices. We got like flexibility, right? We want to be in a place of flexibility with ourselves. And I mean, with food as women, I mean, gosh, it's just, it can be so complicated. So then the next piece is looking at what is happening hormonally and how do we support that in your body? The right ratio of protein is really important because the pancreas runs on amino acids. And so, although it's ideal to get this certain amount of protein every single day, especially during. During pregnancy, we tell women, if you focus on a protein size and every single meal that is about the same size as your Palm. Of your hand, you're going to get about 30 or 40 grams of protein. With that, and that is what you should be sticking with in order to get enough protein in that actual meal. So if you are starting with a huge amount of protein, And that is your focus for the meal. Is that big chunk of protein on your plate? Almost for, for many healthy women. Women. It almost. Almost doesn't matter what else you fill your plate with. And I mean, it. Kind of does, but. But it's so important that you start with this protein piece that like that is going to be your focus, making sure that you get enough protein and then you can start adding in some other things. And you also want to optimize hormone. Balance because. Insulin is a hormone. And that is insulin. Is the hormone that your. Your body produces when you have an influx of glucose in your bloodstream. So you eat something, your body turns it into sugar and your body's response is oh, I need to keep this sugar level maintained and leveled, and it releases insulin from your pancreas in order to do that. And so we need 20 or 30 grams of protein in every single meal in order to optimize that hormone balance and keep insulin stable. And we always want to be sure that we're including fat and protein, even with our snacks. So even as you just quickly grab. A granola bar or an apple or a handful of crackers or a piece of bread or something, you have to pair it with. A chunk of fat or another. PR like another protein ish snack in order to keep that insulin piece as stable as possible. Yeah. And you may need to like think. Ahead, prepare some things ahead, have some quick to grab types of options so that you can do that first and then decide, okay, what am I, what else am I going to eat? Kind of thing. Just so that you're staying nice and stable. I think it's helpful to remember too, like, as you're talking about insulin, you're talking about your. Pancreas, your pancreas can get really exhausted if it just constantly has. To pump out insulin because you're eating in a way that is spiking your blood sugar consistently. And so this is where, right, like resistance comes from. And so. Optimizing that and prioritizing that idea of balance. We'll help. Everything in your body not be as taxed and to be those hormones, to be able to communicate as well as they possibly can, because eventually if we're just continuously putting our pancreas in a position where it's just. Constantly having to work so hard. At some point it doesn't necessarily give up, but it's just like, I I'm exhausted. Or the other pieces in your body, or like, we're not listening anymore. Stop, stop. We don't like. Okay, that's great insulin. You've been here all day. Go home. Kind of thing. And so just helpful. To think about the way that communication happens in your body, because because it really does matter.