Prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) among women attending antenatal clinic of a teaching hospital

Abstract

Introduction: GDM has appeared to be growing diagnostic and epidemiological problem in recent years.1 As per WHO GDM is defined as any degree of glucose with onset or first recognition during pregnancy. The two types of GDM include G1-impaired glucose tolerance with normal blood sugar which required diet modification alone and G2-hyperglycemia on fasting and postprandial requiring diet and insulin treatment. Materials and Methods: Data was collected from 180 pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic of Tagore Medical College, Chennai irrespective of period of gestation. The sampling method adopted was systematic random sampling technique. A pretested questionnaire was used to collect information regarding 4 socio-demographic details. And to diagnose Gestational diabetes mellitus DIPSI method was used. In this procedure after undergoing preliminary examination, a pregnant woman was given 75gm of oral glucose load, irrespective of whether she was in fasting or non fasting state and without regard to time of last meal. Results: In the present study the prevalence of GDM according to DIPSI criteria was 12.2%. Of the 180 pregnant women who participated in the study, 19 (10.3%) were in the age group of ≤ 19 years, 85 (47.2%) were in the age group of 20-24 years, 50 (28.1%) were in the age group of 25-29 years and 26 (14.4%) were in ≥ 30 years age group. Conclusion: In this study there is a greater prevalence of GDM in women with increasing age, higher parity. There is a need for universal screening to pick up gestational diabetes mellitus to prevent both maternal and fetal morbidity. Based on these results it concluded that, the diagnosis of GDM based on DIPSI method is a convenient, quick and cost effective.