Pregnancy diabetes screening should be 'performed earlier'

Conclusion This cohort study suggests that babies of women diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 28 weeks or later may have already started to grow abnormally large for their age. Not every baby was affected, but the risk of a larger baby was higher in women who developed diabetes, and the changes had happened before they were diagnosed. This increases the argument that screening for diabetes in pregnancy should be moved earlier than 28 weeks, although no differences were seen at 20 weeks, so this looked too early to be of any practical use. Current recommended practice in England and Wales suggest women with gestational diabetes would usually be picked up at 24-28 weeks.  Although women with risk factors like obesity may be picked up much sooner. Those with a range of risk factors who book their first antenatal appointment in the first (up to week 12) or second trimester (up to week 27) are offered blood glucose self monitoring or a two-hour 75g oral glucose tolerance test to detect it. Women without these risk factors may be less likely to be detected until the 24-28 week window. Prof Gordon Smith, one of the researchers, told BBC News: "The recommendations are that screening should take place at some point between 24 and 28 weeks, but in practice a lot screen at 28 weeks. Our findings indicate that it should be brought forward to 24 weeks and that would still be consistent with existing guidelines." It is worth noting that the two groups of women were noticeabl...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Pregnancy/child Source Type: news