Objective: To compare the pregnancy experience among women with and without gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) using a nationally representative survey.
Research design and methods: We analyzed data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth conducted by National Center for Health Statistics on 3,088 women age 15-44 years with at least one pregnancy between 1991 and 1995 to compare demographics, fecundity, and pregnancy experience by GDM (n = 116) or nondiabetes (n = 2,969) status.
Results: Among women with a pregnancy during 1991-1995, 3.6% reported GDM history. Women with GDM were older at age of delivery (31.8 years) than women without diabetes (29.0 years, P < 0.001). There was no significant difference between the groups by race/ethnicity. Compared with women without diabetes, women with gestational diabetes were more likely to report being currently surgically sterile (20.4 vs. 32.6%) or having impaired fecundity (12.6 vs. 19.7%, P < 0.001). GDM patients were more likely to have had a caesarean section than those without diabetes (31.7 vs. 20.9%, P = 0.02) and were more likely to report at least one of six additional nonroutine medical complications during pregnancy than nondiabetic patients (48.8 vs. 17.1%, P < 0.001). The odds ratio of a maternal medical complication during pregnancy for women with GDM compared with nondiabetic women, after adjusting for age at pregnancy and nongestational hypertension, was 4.3 (95% CI 2.7-6.8).
Conclusions: These findings suggest that pregnancies in women with GDM are more likely to be associated with maternal medical complications compared with pregnancies in women without diabetes.