Prevalence of Type II Diabetes After Pregnancy in Women with a History of Gestational Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Patients with a history of gestational diabetes have a greater susceptibility to recurrence in subsequent pregnancies, as well as a higher risk of developing glucose intolerance and, of course, type 2 diabetes in the future. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of diabetes and glucose intolerance disorder in patients with gestational diabetes in the postpartum period in Iran.

The he following databases were searched for all the published articles: Irandoc, Iranmedex, SID, Magiran, Scopus, as well as Google search engine using the keywords of diabetes, gestational diabetes, pregnancy, type II diabetes, pregnancy diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and epidemiology. The study data was entered the STATA statistical software and was analyzed. The forest plot was used to demonstrate the results of the meta-analysis.

A number of 6497 participants within the age range 18-45 years from 6 studies were assessed in the current study.  According to the results of the meta-analysis, the prevalence rate of postpartum diabetes in 6497 patients with a history of gestational diabetes (9.4%) and a confidence interval of 95% was obtained at 9.0 -10.0.

Postpartum Glucose Metabolism Disorders are common in women with gestational diabetes. Therefore, the cases of gestational diabetes should be initially screened, identified, and treated during pregnancy to prevent fetal complications. Thereafter, these mothers need to be followed up in the postpartum period to identify diabetes and glucose intolerance and prevent and treat these disorders.