9.8  Checking for diabetes

When a woman has diabetes, her body cannot use all the sugar in her blood, so it stays too high and some of it may appear in her urine.

Warning signs and symptoms

If a woman has some of the following warning signs, she may have diabetes. Women with diabetes do not always have all of these signs. But the more signs a woman has, the more likely it is that she has diabetes.

Figure 9.13  Frequent urination may be a warning symptom of diabetes.

• She had diabetes in a past pregnancy.
• One of her past babies was born very big (more than 4 kilograms); this is because the excess sugar in the mother’s blood makes the baby put on excess weight.
• One of her past babies was very ill or died at birth and no one knows why.
• She is fat.
• She is thirsty all the time.
• She has frequent itching and a bad smell coming from her vagina.
• Her wounds heal slowly.
• She has to urinate more often than other pregnant women (Figure 9.13).
• Her uterus is bigger than normal for how many months she has been pregnant.