Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Numerous studies have reported an increased risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) among women who are overweight or obese compared with lean or normal-weight women. Obesity contributes to multiple health problems during pregnancy and predisposes a woman to develop GDM. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of >30. Overweight is defined as a BMI of 25.0–29.9 and normal weight is defined as a BMI 20–24.9. The aim of the present study was to investigate BMI alterations throughout pregnancy in normal pregnancies and in those complicated by GDM.

Subjects and methods: We studied 211 women from the outpatient clinic of metabolic disorders in pregnancy. These women were ordered to perform the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) with 75 g of glucose, between 26th and 28th week of pregnancy. In 14 (6.64%) women, GDM (two or three values above normal) was diagnosed, in 28 (13.27%) impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) (only one abnormal glucose value) was the diagnosis and 169 (80.1%) women had normal OGTT results (controls). Weight, height and age of the women were analyzed and BMI (weight/height²) was calculated in the beginning of pregnancy (BMI-0), between 26th and 28th week of pregnancy (BMI-1) and between 32nd and 34th week (BMI-2).

Results: Mean BMI-0 values were significantly elevated in women who presented GDM in comparison to those with IGT or normal OGTT results (P<0.05). The increase in BMI values was analogous in all three groups of pregnant women, without statistically significant difference between BMI-0, BMI-1 and BMI-2 values of women of the same group.

Conclusion: Our findings confirm that high maternal weight is associated with a substantially higher risk of GDM.