Abstract

Objective: To examine the temporal trends in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) prevalence in Chile, and to determine the main predictors of GDM. Methods: A secondary analysis was conducted of all birth records at Hospital Dr. Sótero del Río, Chile, from January 1, 2002, to December 31, 2015. We excluded those women with pre-existing type 2 diabetes, those with missing data, and those with unlikely data. GDM was defined as fasting glucose levels >5.55 mmol/L [>100 mg/dL] or >7.77 mmol/L [>140 mg/dL] 2 hours after glucose load in the oral glucose tolerance test. Potential predictors were selected based on prior research and ease of evaluation. Results: From the original database of 100 758 records, 86 362 women were included in the final cohort. The mean GDM prevalence was 7.6% (95% CI [confidence interval] 7.5%–7.8%), increasing from 4.4% (95% CI 4.0%–4.9%) in 2002 to 13.0% (95% CI 12.0%–13.9%) in 2015. Age, education, marital status, parity, family history of type 2 diabetes, personal history of GDM, hypertension and pre-eclampsia, alcohol consumption, smoking, and pre-gestational nutritional status performed well in the prediction of GDM. Conclusion: One out of eight Chilean pregnant women of medium- to low socio-economic status were found to develop GDM. We identified a set of easy-to-capture predictors in the primary health care system that may allow for the early identification of women at high-risk for the development of GDM.