Pregnancy After Back Surgery with Gestational Diabetes~ a scientist's experience

[SkhyeMoncrief]

Pregnancy weight gain? What is healthy?

First of all, our culture is so caught up in the idea of being beautiful and rail thin that we take pregnancy as an opportunity to eat anything we'd like. I couldn't do that. I became pregnant--planned the event when my bones had fused enough for pregnancy--six months after I had one level fused in my lower back. Fine. No problem. But I was terrified to gain too much weight and stress the adjacent levels. I had to don my thinking hat and be rational...

Normal weight gain during pregnancies in our culture is 20-30 pounds. I know lots of women heavier than I who lost weight during their pregnancies. But I weighted 128.5 pounds at the ob/gyn's office on my first visit. Still, the clencher is, baby and placenta with all that water only weigh in at 22.5 pounds. I learned this studying bioarchaeology. The health-care industry didn't inform me of the fact. So, I continued to keep that thinking hat working on my side.

According to bioarchaeology, normal neonate weight world-wide and throughout history has been 5-6 pounds. Normal. This means if your child doesn't weigh 7.5 pounds at birth, your child will be absolutely healthy. And the fact newborns are so huge in our culture means we must have medical intervention in most cases to help mother and baby. My daughter weighed 5 lbs and 13 oz. Normal...

My ob/gyn immediately began the drill when I walked through his door: you're obese. I weighed 128 pounds! So, I tried not to hurl the examing table at him every visit. But, I still needed to be rational. Mind you, this was difficult. I, the anthropologist, had often planned to have a midwife. But my husband, the scientist, just wouldn't be able to digest the idea. So, I plowed ahead and learned I had gestational diabetes. Ok, this means you have sugar lows throughout the day, and your body, because of the low blood sugar, focuses all it's energy on feeding the fetus. The baby grows too fast. Ultrasounds can only guess the weight at +/-2 pounds. When two pounds shy of the guesstimation, that means your expected 7 pounder is 9 pounds! Not good for baby's shoulders or mom during childbirth. To make a long story short, I survived gestational diabetes with a few tricks.

Tricks for moms plagued with gestational diabetes:

My friend, a nurse, had to deal with diabetes her 26 years of marriage to her husband who was tortured with the ailment. Great for me. She knew everything. I learned that protein counteracted the affects of sugar/starches if eaten at the right moment. This is what got me through a long and torturous journey during my third trimester.

Now, you should follow the diet your ob/gyn provides. You can ask for the regimen I was shackled to. I was given the diet from the American Diabetes Association. So, I learned yeast breads, potatoes, and pasta were making me miserable and constipated (all carbs that turn to sugar!). I avoided them and substituted corn chips, beans, angel food cake, and ice cream. These items are on the diet's list of approved foods. I had little angel food cake or ice cream. But I did find the Hood Carb Countdown chocolate milk wonderful at bedtime. It is mostly protein with 2 grams of carbs per serving. The diet wanted me to eat a sandwich. I refused to eat a whole meal at bedtime. The milk worked. But this was after I walked an hour every evening. Walking burns off your extra bloodsugar before bedtime. That's a good thing.

But real-good-perfect-wonderful candy is a no no. You can eat sugar-free candy. Russell Stover and Whitmans make sugar-free chocolates! The trick is to eat one or two pieces in the middle of your meal, then conclude with protein. In other words, save some meat/hard cheese/egg/peanutbutter for the end of your meal. The diet allowed for icecream at bedtime. I chased every snack with a hard-boiled egg. Eggs are good for you. The myth about cholesterol issues is passe. My cholesterol came down on its own when I started using/eating butter, unmodified eggs, cheese, and chicken skin again in my diet. Long explanation. The short of it is... Everything's about genetics and how our ancestors ate. You got to put in your body what it's genetically geared to use to operate. If you throw in a new oil, things don't work as efficiently. That's why I stopped using canola oil. My ancestors didn't know it existed!!!

Portions are key. You have to balance each type of food at each meal. So, you need the diet I had to make it work--a diet based on the glycemic index. Because, I was 125 lbs five days after childbirth. I still don't eat much yeast bread, potatoes, or pasta now that I know what I know. It doesn't help my weight issue. I don't have time to exercise as I did in physical therapy and pregnancy up to childbirth. But you can keep your weight down and have a healthy baby. My daughter has been 75th-90th percentile height and 75th-off the charts weight wise most of the time. Early on, the smaller newborns grow fast to catch up with the larger ones. That's a fact in pediatrics. And she's very bright.

Prenatal Vitamins:

One issue I had was only being able to sleep up to four hours each night during my pregnancy. My doctor had me taking my vitamins at bedtime. Recently, I learned vitamin-B complex supplements give you energy and shouldn't be taken after 1PM or you won't be able to sleep. Vitamin-B complex is part of our prenatal vitamins. Take your vitamins at lunch if you have insomnia. Taking them before 11 AM is bad because your body is flushing it's system and doesn't keep the extra vitamins around long.

[shell81]

Sep. 19, 2007 at 9:34 AM I am diabetic got that way w 2nd kid he left me a gift for life !!!! so i didn't take real good care of myself for a couple yrs now i have nerve damage to my feet and it hurts to stand longer than 45 mins it is hard i use to work fulltime and over time now i do good to work partitme that is why i'm going back to school to get a better job where i can work at a desk and let me tell you loseing weight being diabetic is REALLY hard i still have baby weight after 3yrs that is sad but its hard

[SkhyeMoncrief]

Sep. 21, 2007 at 7:56 AM Oh, I forgot to add that my hips and derriere shrank while I was pregnant!

(Original Poster)