Everyone, welcome back to parently. Today we're gonna talk about the dreaded glucose screening test. Now, the reason it's dreaded is because many women dislike the pop that they drink for the glucose, but I want to explain why it's done and when it's done. Now, it's important to understand that all pregnant women should receive the screening test. And this is done between your 24th and your 28th week. Now, why is this?
Well, we're trying to test for gestational diabetes, it's that important for you as a patient and for the health of your baby to know if you have gestational diabetes, and the only way to know is to screen you. And if the test is abnormal, try to come up with a diagnosis of whether you have gestational diabetes or not. That's important to understand that again, this is a screening test. So a screening test simply means do you fall out? The normal and if you fall out of the normal, then we do further testing. So we're going to talk about the normal and then we're going to talk about the abnormal and then in a later video if you're in the abnormal group, what this entails.
So between your 24th and 28th week Your doctor will give your prescription go to the lab and drink blue cola. Now it's 50 grams of glue cola. It tastes like sugary pop and they make an orange flavored Nicola flavored and you get to pick as a patient. Now you do not have to be fasting. That means you can eat or drink before you go. In fact, I encourage you to because oftentimes, the glue cola is so sweet that if you drink it on an empty stomach, sometimes it will cause you to be nauseated.
Now, you drink the the glue cola and you wait one hour, after one hour they draw your blood and then you're going to get a value that your healthcare provider will call you on within usually a week. And this value is 140 or less. So if the value comes back less than 140 on your one hour test, then you're defined as normal. If it's greater than 140, then you have to do what's called the actual diagnostic test, which in some practices is a two hour test. Some practices. This is a three hour test, but we'll address that on a later video.
Two out of three women have a normal glucose screening test, one out of three women do not and again, that group of women the abnormal group will talk about on a different video. I hope you pass your screening test, not having to do the three hours very positive for most women. Hope this was helpful today. Have a great day.