Literature Review: Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Literature Review

INTRODUCTION

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a popular pregnancy complication which affects 15% of pregnant women worldwide (1). GDM normally associates with both long term and short term morbidity in both mother and child. For example, the mother will deliver baby at high birth weight (macrosomia) which results in the baby being at risk for hypoglycemia, jaundice and birth trauma (2). In longer term, this child is more prone to have abnormal glucose tolerance and develop into diabetes during adolescence (3). Whereas the mother is more likely to have diabetes mellitus (DM) in the future than the mother with normal glucose level during pregnancy. (4).

Immoderate weight gain during pregnancy is one of the risk factors of GDM. Mothers with excessive have higher chance of having their offsprings associate with high birth weight (macrosomia). Birth weight is another important characteristic which determine children’s morbidity and mortality (5). Therefore, it is important to take prevention during early pregnancy. Recently, several researches

However, GDM was strongly related to birth weight. Women with GDM were more likely to deliver babies with macrosomia (11). This was because excessive glucose in maternal blood will trigger the baby’s pancreas to produce more insulin-like growth hormone thus the baby will have a higher birth weight (12). Besides, GDM can either increase or decrease the birth weight of baby. GDM was one of the factors causing foetal growth restriction which resulted in low birth weight. Even though GDM is responsible for both high or low birth weight, both of the situations associated with metabolic syndrome as the long term effect. The metabolic syndrome include hypertension, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease