FINDINGS IN A SCREENING-PROGRAM FOR GESTA TIONAL DIABETES

Objective. To determine the prevalence of gestational diabetes (GD) in an outpatient clinic in northeastern Mexico. Patients. 732 consecutiv e pregnant women referred for prenatal care during a two-year period. Intervention and outcome measure. A 100 g glucose tolerance test was p erformed in the patients with sampling at 1, 2 and 3 hours postchallen ge. The patients were classified according to the criteria of the Amer ican Diabetes Association as normal, abnormal, and a third category of those showing a single abnormal value in the tolerance test. Results. Six percent of the women (44/732) had GD and 1.4% (10/732) had one ab normal value. A comparison group was made with a subset of 44 of the 6 78 women who showed a normal tolerance test. No group differences were seen in parity, and age, nor in body weight gain or changes in body m ass index, the latter measured in the initial and final weeks of pregn ancy. Significant differences versus the normal women were seen in the GD group for cesarean births (43% vs 30%) and in macrosomy (25% vs 7% ). The group with one abnormal test showed high values in cesareans (5 0%) and macrosomy (10%) but did not reach significant difference with the other groups. Conclusions. GD was higher in our study than in the only paper on GD prevalence reported in Mexico (3.9%). The higher inci dence of cesareans and macrosomy in GD makes it necessary to consider therapeutic interventions in these cases.