To Determine Incidence of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Using a Single Step Diagnostic Test - A One Year Hospital Based Prospective Study

Abstract

Background and Objectives Women with GDM are at increased risk of future diabetes predominantly type 2 diabetes mellitus and is also associated with increased risk of fetal morbidity and mortality. The present study was undertaken with a single step test to detect GDM in pregnancy which has been validated and furthermore the findings of this study will also help to determine the incidence of GDM with respect to different period of gestation. Methods The present one year prospective study was conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, KLES Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Belgaum between the period of September 2010 to August 2011 on 120 pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic. Participating patients underwent Oral glucose tolerance test with 75 gm of glucose in their first trimester. If test results negative patients underwent repeat testing at 24 to 28 weeks and if found negative, repeated test at 32 to 34 weeks. Results More than half (55.83%) women had age between 20 to 24 years. Overall the mean age was 23.04 ± 3.36 years and 67.50% women had BMI in the range of 19.8 to 26.0 Kg/m 2 . Overall the mean BMI was 20.7 ± 3.07 Kg/m pregnant women were multrigravida. During the first trimester 9.17% had GDM whereas 0.83% had overt diabetes. During the second and third trimester 7.45% and 12.05% patients were newly diagnosed with GDM respectively. Of the 120 IX 2 and 50.83% patients subjected to the study, overall incidence of GDM was 23.33% and 0.83% was diagnosed with overt diabetes. During the first trimester, 83.33% patients were multigravida and this association of gravidity with GDM was statistically significant (p=0.018). Conclusion and interpretation This evidence is enough to evaluate the efficacy of subjecting all the pregnant women to test for diagnosing GDM in each trimester and this test should become the part of routine antenatal investigations.