The relation of gestational diabetes with mother-baby health

The aim of the study is to analyse the prevalence of gestational diabetes risk and its link with mother-baby health. The study was performed as analytical-cross sectional with 491 women who had given birth to their babies at İzmir Tepecik Training and Research Hospital between June 2015 and September 2016. Survey data were obtained by means of a questionnaire based on a literature prepared by the researcher. In the analysis of the data; descriptive statistics, chi square, student-t and Mann-Whitney U tests were used. It was determined that 8,1% women who had participated the study was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. It was found out that the prevalence of gestational diabetes was statistically and significantly seen higher between 25-45 ages (X2=18,232; p=0,000) and also in secodary obese people (X2=12,457; p=0,014). In addition, it was established that gestational diabetes was more frequently observed in women with diabetes history in their previous pregnancies (7,5% vs 1,1%; X2=5,801, p=0,016) and family history (75,0% vs 22,0%; X2=53,379, p=0,000) and in those with over 4000 gr baby delivery (12,5% vs 2,2%; X2=9,878, p=0,002) and these differences were statistically significant. It was seen that women with gestational diabetes (27,5%) were more hospitalized than those without gestational diabetes (8,9%) (X2=11,773; p=0,001). It was also identified that the newborns of women with gestational diabetes had higher body weight (3345,88±588,43) and their average chest girth (34,03±1,61) and these differences were statistically important (respectively t=2,119; p=0,035 and t=2,662; p=0,009). In the study, it was detected that women with gestational diabetes had similar characteristics with those without gestational diabetes with regard to their residence, education, work, perceived income level, smoking, doing exercise, receiving antenatal care and prepregnancy health problem, delivery method, initiation way of delivery, episiotomy application and locating with laceration, problem development during delivery and postnatal, fetal apex rate and apgar score and chest girth of babies, health problem development and being taken into intensive care. It was understood in this study that gestational diabetes rate was high and this situation increased hospitalization rate during pregnancy and atropometric measurements of babies. Health professionals should inform all pregnant women about gestational diabetes including those with hish gestational diabetes risk, provide screening test for early diagnosis, teach healthy life style behaviour to women diagnosed with diabetes and in this way, they can contribute to mother-baby health. Keywords: Diabetes, gestational, prevalence, baby, woman, health, nursing, care