Complications

Gestational diabetes that's not carefully managed can lead to high blood sugar levels. High blood sugar can cause problems for you and your baby, including an increased likelihood of needing a C-section to deliver.

Complications that may affect your baby

If you have gestational diabetes, your baby may be at increased risk of:

• Excessive birth weight. Higher than normal blood sugar in mothers can cause their babies to grow too large. Very large babies — those who weigh 9 pounds or more — are more likely to become wedged in the birth canal, have birth injuries or need a C-section birth.
• Early (preterm) birth. High blood sugar may increase women's risk of early labor and delivery before the due date. Or early delivery may be recommended because the baby is large.
• Serious breathing difficulties. Babies born early to mothers with gestational diabetes may experience respiratory distress syndrome — a condition that makes breathing difficult.
• Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Sometimes babies of mothers with gestational diabetes have low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) shortly after birth. Severe episodes of hypoglycemia may cause seizures in the baby. Prompt feedings and sometimes an intravenous glucose solution can return the baby's blood sugar level to normal.
• Obesity and type 2 diabetes later in life. Babies of mothers who have gestational diabetes have a higher risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes later in life.
• Stillbirth. Untreated gestational diabetes can result in a baby's death either before or shortly after birth.

Complications that may affect you

Gestational diabetes may also increase your risk of:

• High blood pressure and preeclampsia. Gestational diabetes raises your risk of high blood pressure, as well as preeclampsia — a serious complication of pregnancy that causes high blood pressure and other symptoms that can threaten the lives of both mother and baby.
• Having a surgical delivery (C-section). You're more likely to have a C-section if you have gestational diabetes.
• Future diabetes. If you have gestational diabetes, you're more likely to get it again during a future pregnancy. You also have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes as you get older.