Ayurvedic Tips for Gestational diabetes or diabetes in pregnant women

GESTATIONAL DIABETES OR DIABETES IN PREGNANT WOMEN Ayurvedic Tips

You may be at risk of gestational diabetes if you are overweight or have a family member with a history of diabetes. Your doctor will evaluate these risk factors early during your pregnancy. Routine screening for gestational diabetes includes:

• Initial glucose challenge test: Calculate blood sugar levels one hour after drinking a sugary solution.
• Follow-up glucose tolerance test: Calculate blood sugar levels after overnight fasting followed by drinking a sugary solution and re-testing blood sugar levels every hour for three hours.

Once diagnosed with gestational diabetes, you may have to go for frequent blood sugar check-ups during the last 3 months of pregnancy.

Diet Recommendations (Aahar)

• Increase intake of barley in diet as it is considered the main food for healing diabetes.
• Turmeric with aloe vera gel (1 to 3 gms./.035 to .1 oz) is best during the early stages of diabetes.
• Have herbs like gokshura, gudmar, triphalá, musta, cardamom, fenugreek, or coriander, mixed with honey.
• Include other cereals such as wheat, kodo millet and rice which crops within 60 days.
• Pulses such as adhaki, horse gram (kulattha), green gram (mudga), along with bitter and astringent leafy vegetables may be taken.
• Include vegetables such as green banana, chaulee, dwarf copperleaf (matsyakhshi), methi (fenugreek leaves) and bitter gourd.
• Include fruits such as orange, watermelon, apple, jambu, kapitha and amla.
• In foods, include oils such as wild castor oil (danti), desert date oil (ingudi), flax seed oil (atasi) and mustard oil.
• Have karela juice or white pumpkin 20-30 ml on an empty stomach.
• Regularly have methi seeds soaked overnight in water.
• Avoid sugar, sugar products, rice, potato, ghee, butter, fat, regular oil, fermented food items, alcohol, urad (blackgram), rajma (kidney beans) and other heavy items.

Lifestyle changes (Vihar)

• Do regular exercises such as walking or yogasanas. Being active is highly beneficial.
• Have regular oil massage.
• Take regular steam.
• Taking sitz or waist bath (warm shallow bath to cleanse the genital area) also helps.
• Include pranayama (breathing exercise) in your daily routine.