Gestational diabetes mellitus 2018 guidelines: An update

Abstract

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has emerged as a global public health problem, both globally and in India. Despite government of India (GoI) prior mandate to screen all Indian pregnant women for GDM, its real operationalization at primary health-care level is suboptimal. Adding new operational component, GoI revised its existing recommendations and released new technical operational guidelines on GDM diagnosis and management in February 2018. The revised guideline highlights integration of two vertical programs, ensuring effective GDM service delivery to all antenatal women at every pause point of existing service delivery platform within public health system. However, its real success depends on knowledge and commitment level of health-care providers. Despite maternal and child health holding high public health relevance since long, community-level delivery of services still persists to be at high risk of fragmentation and inefficiency.