Does routine antenatal fetal testing in well-controlled diabetic pregnancies improve pregnancy outcomes? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Various fetal surveillance tests are proposed to reduce the rate of stillbirth in diabetic mothers, however there is no sufficient evidence to support this.

The purpose of the present systematic review was to assess the effects of fetal testing on reducing fetal mortality in pregnancies with diabetes.

The databases were searched to find English and Persian articles published from 1975-2018 about antenatal fetal assessment in pregnancies complicated with diabetes. Relevant sources cited in the selected publications were also searched manually. Keywords were GDM, pregnancy, fetal testing, fetal surveillance, NST, BPP, CTG. A total of 1954 studies were identified. Of these, 1913 were excluded on the basis of title and abstract review.

Among the 41 studies retrieved for detailed full-text analysis, a total of 10 fulfilled the inclusion criteria for the analysis. Still birth rate was 5.6/1000, cesarean rate was 418/1000. In diabetic pregnant women (gestational and overt diabetes) with well controlled blood sugar who did fetal surveillance tests the intrauterine fetal death rate isn’t different with general population.

As this systematic review suggests, fetal mortality is rare with fetal surveillance tests in pregnant diabetic women with good blood sugar control. No randomized clinical trial has been conducted to investigate this claim.