EARLY SCREENING FOR GESTATIONAL DIABETES CAN ENSURE HEALTHY AND HAPPY FUTURE FOR MOTHER AND CHILD

World Health Day is on April 7, with the 2025 theme “Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures,” focusing on maternal and newborn health

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This World Health Day (April 7) the World Health Organization (WHO) in its wisdom, has chosen an apt theme: Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures. As diabetologists, we have, for decades, been propounding the theory of primordial prevention, or preventing diabetes in the womb itself, in order to ensure a happy and healthy future for both the mother and the baby. We see the WHO’s choice of theme for this World Health Day as a vindication of the work and advocacy campaigns we have undertaken towards this goal.

Diabetes has long been a silent epidemic, affecting millions worldwide, but its roots often lie much earlier than commonly recognised. Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a high risk for type 2 diabetes in mothers and metabolic disorders in children. GDM is usually diagnosed between 24 to 28 weeks of pregnancy. However, current evidence also points to the ability to prevent its onset during the first trimester or even earlier, and its impacts on both the mother and the child are profound and lasting.

Research in the growing body underlines that maternal glucose levels should be carefully regulated as early as the eighth week of pregnancy. An early intervention that would help prevent foetal hyperinsulinemia, a metabolic disturbance that occurs in the 11th week, might avoid this and reduce the risk of the child developing diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) later in life. Given India’s recent burgeoning diabetes burden, this matter needs immediate attention from the medical community and policymakers.

India’s challenge: stemming the rising tide of non-communicable diseases

The case for early glucose screening