GESTATIONAL DIABETES MELLITUS

Objectives: The present study was designed to find the importance of properscreening and early diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus. Study Design: A prospective/descriptive study Place of Study: tertiary care hospital Hyderabad. Duration of Study: fromSeptember 2014 to November 2014. Materials and Methods: A total of 168 pregnant femalesbetween the ages of 20-40 years & in their 24th to 28th week of gestation were enrolled for thestudy. Oral Glucose Tolerance Test of all the participants was done after an overnight fasting of10-12 hours. All the participants were given 75gm of glucose per 100 ml of distilled water. Theblood samples were collected after two hours time for serum glucose levels. Results: Mostof the participants were below 26 years of age 47(27.9%) with the mean age of 30.2±5.83years. However the highest prevalence of GDM was observed in age group 31-35 years (36%).Among the 25 cases of gestational diabetes mellitus the highest number of patients with GDMwere multipara (40%) followed by parity of 3-4 gravida (32%). Twenty seven women (16%)women had family history of diabetes mellitus. Among these 12/27 (44.4%) women were foundwith GDM, compared to 15/141 (10.6%) who have no family history of diabetes mellitus. Total14 (8.33%) women were found obese, out of these 8 (57%) women had GDM while only 6(42.8%) women had no GDM. Conclusion: The prevalence of GDM in the present study isfound to be 14.8%. A prevalence of GDM was higher in the elderly multiparous females whowere overweight and had family history of diabetes mellitus.