IMPLICATIONS OF GESTATIONAL DIABETES MELLITUS: MATERNAL AND FOETAL OUTCOMES

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus was established for the first-time during pregnancy. It should be noted that GDM does not include obvious diabetes in pregnancy. The hyperglycaemia was diagnosed as fasting plasma glucose was at least 105 mg/dL or plasma glucose at two hours after meal was at least 200 mg/dL. The current study aimed to conduct a literature review of the implications of gestational diabetes mellitus: Maternal and foetal outcomes reported for pregnant women with gestational diabetes mellitus. Methodology: The current articles were searched using a variety of key words such as “Diabetes mellitus and/or pregnancy,” “Gestational diabetes mellitus and/or maternal and foetal outcomes”, without limit of language to document assembling of as various cases as possible. Those articles were derivative from the World Health Organization (WHO) agendas and rules. Other data related to gestational diabetes mellitus and reported cases were conducted utilizing seven electronic databases (CINAHL, MEDLINE, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Cochrane) for studies published in various languages from October 2020 to February 2021. Results: The current study concluded that women with GDM is powerfully accompanying to adverse pregnancy outcome, with vibrant evidence that exposure to maternal diabetes in utero has short- and long-term adverse effects on the offspring. GDM has both maternal and foetal risks: for the mother the risk is mostly long term; the development to type 2 DM and metabolic syndrome. For the foetus there are both short- and long-term complications; IUFD, abnormal foetal growth primarily macrosomia with its effect on delivery and risk of shoulder dystocia and metabolic hematologic changes such as hypoglycaemia, hypokalaemia, hyperbilirubinemia, hypocalcaemia, polycythaemia and respiratory distress syndrome. The long-term complications for the foetus are adverse neurological and cognitive consequences and mostly early onset metabolic syndrome.