Trends in the prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus in southern Sweden, 2003-2012

There is accumulating evidence that gestational diabetes is a growing problem. The lack of internationally standardized diagnostic procedures prevents consistent diagnosis and the burden of gestational diabetes must be determined in country-specific studies. In southern Sweden, gestational diabetes is defined as a 2-h capillary plasma glucose concentration of 10.0mmol/L during a universal 75-g oral glucose tolerance test. We report the crude prevalence of gestational diabetes during the years 2003-2012. Of 156144 women who gave birth, 2.2% were diagnosed with gestational diabetes. When the effect of time on the prevalence of gestational diabetes was assessed in a log-linear Poisson model, an overall increase in prevalence of 35% was predicted, corresponding to an average annual increase of 3.4%. Predicted prevalence was 1.9 (95% CI 1.8-2.0) in 2003 and 2.6 (95% CI 2.4-2.7) in 2012 (p<0.0001). Due to a simultaneous rise in birth rate, the number of women diagnosed with gestational diabetes increased by 64%.