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- Researchers reviewed pregnancy complications resulting from gestational diabetes.
- The study used data from more than 7.5 million pregnancies around the world.
- Gestational diabetes causes health complications for both mother and baby.
Pregnancy results in many health changes. Gestational diabetes is one of the conditions that expectant mothers can develop. A new study has found that gestational diabetes is significantly associated with pregnancy complications.
The study published in The BMJ investigated the link between gestational diabetes and adverse outcomes of pregnancy after adjusting confounding factors.
The researchers extracted data from 156 studies involving 7 506 061 pregnancies.
The pregnant women were divided into three groups depending on their use of insulin. The first group did not use insulin. The second group used insulin as part of their treatment. The last group did not report on insulin use.
The researchers also considered the countries where the pregnant women lived; whether they were from a developed or developing countries; their diagnostic criteria; and screening methods.
Reducing adverse pregnancy outcomes
The study found that women who had diabetes during their pregnancy had increased risks of complications for both mother and baby. These risks include Caesarean delivery, severe breathing problems, and excessive birth weight.
The results show that women who did not use insulin as treatment had increased chances of having a Caesarean, experiencing preterm delivery, delivering a newborn with excessive birth weight, and infants born large for their gestational age.
When compared to women who did not have diabetes, women who used insulin had higher odds of having an infant large for their gestational age, with respiratory distress syndrome, or neonatal jaundice, or needing admission to the neonatal intensive care unit.
The study authors say that more research is needed for a more complete set of prognostic factors. “These findings support the need for an improved understanding of the pathophysiology of gestational diabetes mellitus to inform the prediction of risk and for precautions to be taken to reduce adverse outcomes of pregnancy."
