Publication:

Demographic profile of pregnant women and effect of anaemia in gestational diabetes mellitus: a cross sectional study from rural Assam

Background In Assam, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) screening is not routinely done during antenatal check-up in Assam, whereas anemia screening is done. Consequently, state-wide GDM estimate and its association with anemia in rural Assam is not available. Hence, we aim to study the demographic profile of pregnant women and their anaemia in relation to prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus in rural Assam.

Methods The present study was part of a larger community based cross-sectional study, conducted in Assam to determine the prevalence of GDM. The pregnant women in the gestational age of 24-28 weeks, who were free of any chronic illnesses, screened for Anaemia and, GDM through oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) as per diabetes in pregnancy study group in India guideline.

Results A total of 1212 pregnant women underwent the OGTT and test for haemoglobin estimation. Mean age of GDM women was (24.40±4.60 years), slightly higher than non-GDM women (23.50±4.04 years, p=0.007). After hemoglobin estimation, 83% of pregnant women found to be anaemic, 77% of these were GDM positive, which is quite significant with p value 0.025. A higher fraction of the pregnant mothers in our study were found suffering from anemia (83%). The independent association of GDM and anemia adjusted for other variables showed an inverse relationship.

Conclusions Though prevalence of anaemia and GDM in low resource setting in rural Assam found to be quite high, but they have inverse relationship. Anaemic pregnant women were found to be GDM protective.