Management of gestational diabetes in primary care

Understanding gestational diabetes is important to primary care nurses, not only because of a need to be aware of complications that can arise during pregnancy but because of the future risk of type 2 diabetes in the mother-more than seven times that of women who have not had a previous diagnosis of gestational diabetes.¹

The classic definition of gestational diabetes is glucose intolerance with onset or first recognition in pregnancy. Leaving aside women with a diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes before conception, the current prevalence of gestational diabetes is nine per cent, and the problem is growing, driven principally by increasing obesity.²