Abstract

Background: The risk of gestational diabetes mellitus is said to be higher if the expecting mother is overweight. We conducted this study to compare the frequency of gestational diabetes mellitus in second and third trimester in obese and non-obese women.
Methods: It was a prospective study conducted at Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Bahawal Victoria Hospital Bahawalpur. Sixty two obese and 62 non-obese women having singleton pregnancy were registered for the study at their booking visit at ~14-20 weeks of gestation. Women having family history of obesity and chronic ailments and those with age >35 or parity > 5 were excluded. Chi-square test and independent sample t-test were applied to determine statistical significance. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Mean age was 28.12±2.72 years among the group of obese women as compared to 27.89±2.34 years in non-obese group. Commonest parity among the obese women was 3-4 (n=31, 50%) compared to 46.8 % (n=29) in non-obese group. Development of gestational diabetes mellitus was 22.58% (n=14) in obese group which was significantly higher than 6.45% (n=4) in non-obese group (p=0.001).
Conclusion: It is concluded that gestational diabetes mellitus develops significantly higher in obese women as compared to non-obese women as assessed by BMI in early pregnancy.
Key Words: Obesity, Gestational diabetes mellitus, Body Mass Index, Pregnancy

Key words: Gestational diabetes mellitus, obesity, Body Mass Index, pregnancy