Prevalence of gestational diabetes increases by almost 40% during COVID-19 pandemic
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SAN DIEGO — The prevalence of gestational diabetes among women who delivered at a single academic center during the COVID-19 pandemic was 38.9% higher than among women who delivered before the pandemic, according to data presented here.
“This increase in [gestational diabetes] could lead to an increase in pregnancy and delivery-related complications, such as polyhydramnios, macrosomia and cesarean section rates,” Elizabeth Mirsky, MD, a third-year OB/GYN resident at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, told Healio.
In a study presented at the ACOG Annual Clinical & Scientific Meeting, Mirsky and colleagues retrospectively analyzed data from 7,653 patients who delivered at their institution. Of these, 58.6% delivered during the pre-pandemic period — January 2019 to May 2020. Extending the pre-pandemic period to May 2020 gave the researchers “time for some of the possible effects of the pandemic, quarantine, etc. to present themselves,” Mirsky said. The remaining women delivered during the pandemic (June 2020 to July 2021).
Overall, 9% and 12.5% of patients were diagnosed with gestational diabetes in the pre-COVID-19 and pandemic cohorts, respectively.
When stratified by prepregnancy BMI, the prevalence of gestational diabetes during the pandemic remained significantly higher than before the pandemic for women with a prepregnancy BMI of lean (7.4% vs. 5%; P < .01), overweight (10.9% vs. 7.4%; P < .01) and obesity (21.1% vs. 17.2%; P = .02).
Delivery during the pandemic remained a significant predictor of gestational diabetes when controlling for maternal age, prepregnancy BMI and gestational weight gain, according to the study.
“This emphasizes the importance of appropriate antenatal counseling on healthy diet and lifestyle, in an attempt to decrease rates of [gestational diabetes],” Mirsky said. “This also spurs the question of what exactly may be causing these increased rates, whether it is COVID-19 directly or the effects of the quarantine.”
Moving forward, Mirsky said research should elucidate the reasons for the increased prevalence of gestational diabetes and how to offset it.
“I would be curious to start evaluating the possible mechanisms of action for this increase in [gestational diabetes] diagnosis rates,” Mirsky said. “Future research could also start to quantify the rates of increase in potential complications, as well as the effects of enacting various education interventions in an attempt to counteract the rise in [gestational diabetes].”