Pregnancy Experience Among Women With and Without Gestational Diabetes in the U.S., 1995 National Survey of Family Growth

Abstract

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.