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Download AudioA Liggins Institute study has recommended the threshold for blood sugar levels in a test for gestational diabetes in pregnant women should be lowered to bring it in line with international standards.
About 6 percent of women or about 3800 per year develop diabetes during pregnancy, with Māori, Pacific and Asian women over-represented.
Lead investigator, Professor Caroline Crowther, says the study of over 4000 pregnant New Zealand women found when the lower blood-sugar threshold was used, twice as many women were diagnosed with gestational diabetes and treated,
That meant important benefits for their health and that of their babies.
“The Ministry of Health are currently updating the recommendations around care for mothers who develop gestational diabetes and obviously this study will be one of those they need to look at quite carefully, about whether the recommendation about how we how we diagnose this problem during pregnancy is made and should those thresholds for diagnosis come down,” she says.
she says.
Professor Crowther wants to see a blood glucose test mid-pregnancy be made compulsory.
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