Four things in one place: what your glucose test result means, a home sugar log that shows which readings are on target, the insulin plan for your doctor, and the test dates after your baby is born.
Built by Dr. Khizer Hussain Junaidy · Diabetologist & Bariatric Physician · Telangana State Medical Council 04937 · Reviewed October 2026
Go to your obstetrician or the labour room now if the baby is moving less than usual, you have bleeding or leaking fluid, a severe headache, blurred vision or sudden swelling, or a low sugar that does not come up after glucose. Caspian Healthcare has no labour room.
Nothing you type leaves this phone or computer. The sugar log is saved only in this browser. This page does not replace your obstetrician or diabetologist: targets and doses are set for each woman after a consultation.
1. Your glucose test
Every pregnant woman in India should have her sugar tested at the first antenatal visit, and again at 24 to 28 weeks if the first test was normal. Enter the result from your report.
Which test did you have?
DIPSI: 75 g of glucose at any time of day, fed or fasting; 2 hours 140 mg/dL or more is gestational diabetes (the test in the national guideline). IADPSG: after an overnight fast; any one of fasting 92, 1 hour 180 or 2 hours 153 mg/dL or more. Fasting 126 or 2 hours 200 or more (WHO 2013), or HbA1c 6.5% or more at the first visit, points to diabetes that was there before the pregnancy. HbA1c does not diagnose diabetes that starts in pregnancy. How to prepare: glucose tolerance test sheet.
2. Your home sugar log
Check your sugar on waking and after meals, as your doctor advised. Save each day here. Readings outside the target are marked, and the summary tells you when to show the log to your doctor. How to use the meter: glucometer sheet.
After meals, I check at
Count from the start of the meal.
On insulin?
If a reading is below 70 mg/dL
This is a low sugar. It happens only with insulin or tablets. Take 15 g of glucose (3 teaspoons of glucose powder or sugar in water) and check again after 15 minutes. If it is still below 70, repeat, then eat a snack. Tell your doctor about every low. More on the low sugar sheet.
3. For doctors: medicine and insulin
For registered medical practitioners. Insulin is the preferred medicine for gestational diabetes (ADA 2026). Work alongside the obstetrician. Adults only.
When to start a medicine
Readings and doses
The last 3 readings at each time, in mg/dL, and the dose now.
On wakingsets the night-time (basal) dose
After breakfastsets the breakfast dose
After lunchsets the lunch dose
After dinnersets the dinner dose
After-meal readings are judged against the timing chosen in the log (1 hour below 140, or 2 hours below 120). Change it there.
Clinic protocol: starting doses and steps (change to your own)
No guideline sets these numbers. A 2025 UK national survey found hospital starting doses from 2 to 20 units for basal insulin and 1 to 12 units for mealtime insulin. These are Caspian's defaults; edit them to match your unit.
Steps are applied every 3 days, on the middle of the last 3 readings at that time. Any reading below 70 lowers the dose behind it by 10 to 20% straight away, whatever the other readings.
Choosing the insulin
High fasting readings: a night-time basal insulin. ADA 2026 lists glargine, NPH and degludec as the options in pregnancy. Detemir, the only basal insulin with trial data in pregnancy, has been withdrawn by its maker.
High readings after a meal: a rapid-acting insulin before that meal. Aspart and lispro are widely used in pregnancy (ADA 2026). Regular human insulin is a lower-cost option, given 30 minutes before the meal.
Metformin: NICE offers it first when diet and walking fail; ADA 2026 does not use it first line because it crosses the placenta. If used, explain this to the mother.
As pregnancy goes on, insulin needs rise. A rapid, large fall in need may mean the placenta is struggling (ADA 2026; the data are mixed). Tell the obstetrician the same day.
After delivery, most women with gestational diabetes need no medicine (ADA 2026). Insulin resistance falls at once, so stop or sharply reduce insulin and check sugars for a day or two.
4. After your baby is born
In most women the sugar returns to normal after delivery. The risk does not: gestational diabetes raises the chance of type 2 diabetes later in life. One test after delivery, and then a check every few years, catches it early.
Every 1 to 3 years for life (ADA 2026). Yearly is safer if the postnatal test is borderline or you are overweight.
Breastfeed if you can. It is good for your sugar and your baby, and lowers the chance of type 2 diabetes later (ADA 2026).
Before the next pregnancy, have a sugar check and a plan. Gestational diabetes often comes back.
Your baby can be seen by Dr. Amreen, our paediatrician, in the same building.
Sources
American Diabetes Association. Standards of Care in Diabetes 2026. Section 15: Management of diabetes in pregnancy. Diabetes Care 2026;49(Suppl 1):S321. Recommendations 15.8, 15.17, 15.21, 15.26, 15.28, 15.30, 15.31. Diabetes Care
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Diabetes in pregnancy: management from preconception to the postnatal period (NG3). Recommendations 1.2.18 to 1.2.23. NICE
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. National guidelines for diagnosis and management of gestational diabetes mellitus (DIPSI single-step test).
International Association of Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Groups. Recommendations on the diagnosis and classification of hyperglycemia in pregnancy. Diabetes Care 2010;33:676–682.
World Health Organization. Diagnostic criteria and classification of hyperglycaemia first detected in pregnancy. 2013.
Mayne IK, et al. The glucose management of gestational diabetes in the UK: a national survey. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 2025;25:816.