Question from Edina, Missouri, USA:

I am 20 weeks pregnant with my third son. Four years ago, I had an open RNY gastric-bypass surgery, lost around 180 pounds and went from 385 pounds to 205 pounds. The past few years I have noticed that I would get dizzy, hot/cold, heart palpitations, and even somewhat confused when I would eat certain types of sugar. Both of my parents, and one sibling have type 2 diabetes so I would test my blood sugar using my mother’s glucometer. My blood sugar would be around 40 mg/dl [2.2 mmol/L]. So, I assumed I had hypoglycemia, or a form of it. This continued. I would just live with the symptoms if I ate sweets, never going to the doctor for it.

When I became pregnant, a few times during the first trimester my blood sugar would drop quicker than it used to. French dressing on a salad or a hot roll would make it plummet. I asked the ob/gyn and they said just to avoid that food, but it would not hurt the baby, though it could hurt me if I passed out while driving. Well, never one to stick to a diet very well, since I heard it would NOT hurt the baby, I would still eat the wrong things sometimes. Then, my blood sugars changed and started going up when I ate the wrong things. It will go from 170 to 270 mg/dl [9.4 to 15.0 mmol/L] over simple little amounts of carbohydrates or sugars. Again, I was always under the impression that this would not hurt the baby. It would cause me to have a large baby, hence making the birth more difficult, but I have cesarean sections anyway, and my last two children were almost 11 pounds. At that time, I had been checked so I knew I did not have diabetes. I wasn’t too worried about it, but now, I am reading the questions and letters posted on this board and others, and am worried about what I may have done to my unborn child. I honestly didn’t think I was hurting anyone other than myself, and didn’t think I was really hurting myself since the blood sugar drops back to normal within an hour or two. Have I already hurt the baby? Is it too late to change my eating pattern? If half of this pregnancy was spent with a blood sugar over 200 mg/dl [11.1 mmol/L], what can I expect? They have already done a level 2 ultrasound and the blood work for spinal defects/down syndrome, Everything came back normal.

Since I am heavy (210 pounds), they didn’t get a real clear look at the heart chambers, but felt it was all fine since everything else was perfect. Please let me know what to expect, if I can fix any wrong I may have done, if I really am just hurting myself or if I could lose my baby at this point? I am already suffering from constant urinary tract infections (UTIs), so I am getting ready to take my second round of antibiotics. I suspect I’m getting the UTIs because of the diabetes. Is this possible?