Women who have higher risk factors, such as family history of diabetes, obesity, lack of exercise or a previous pregnancy with gestational diabetes should have a five hour glucose tolerance test to rule out the possibility and prevent medical complications.
Chocolate consumption in pregnancy:
Chocolate and pregnancy complications: To investigate whether chocolate’s possible cardiovascular benefits may prevent pre-eclampsia, researchers looked at 2,291 women who delivered a single infant, and asked them about how much chocolate they consumed in their first and third trimesters. The researchers also tested levels of theobromine, used as a biomarker for chocolate consumption, in infants’ umbilical cord blood. Women who consumed the most chocolate and those whose infants had the highest concentration of theobromine in their cord blood were the least likely to develop preeclampsia. Women in the highest quarter for cord blood theobromine were 69% less likely to develop the complication than those in the lowest quarter. Women who ate five or more servings of chocolate each week in their third trimester of pregnancy were 40% less likely to develop pre-eclampsia than those who ate chocolate less than once a week. A similar, but weaker, relationship between chocolate consumption and preeclampsia risk was seen in the first trimester, with women eating five or more servings of chocolate each week at 19% lower risk than those who ate chocolate less than once a week. (56)