Uncontrolled gestational diabetes mellitus causes severe maternal and fetal complications such as pre-eclampsia,
macrosomic baby, fetal demise, neonatal hyperbilirubinemia, and hypoglycemia and also increases obesity and type 2 DM
risk in offspring later in life.
This study aimed to assess awareness of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia regarding diabetes and its health risk
effect on pregnancy outcome and to measure the prevalence of gestational DM among them.
This is a comparative cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty
of Medicine Umm Al Qura University involving 480 women living in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during June 2021- June
2022. Data was collected through an online questionnaire formulated to survey saudi women due to covid 19 pandemics
measures.
About 20% had DM. Prevalence of gestational DM was 11.5% among currently pregnant participants. 76% of participants
had family history of diabetes. After doing linear regression of predictors for knowledge about gestational DM, gravidity
and parity became non-significant, however being in medical field, husband in medical field, having DM, past or family
history of DM remained significant (p
Key words: Gestational diabetes, Pregnancy outcome, Saudi, Fetal complications,
|
