One-Step Screening for Gestational Diabetes Offers Few Benefits to Mothers or Newborns

Despite an increase in gestational diabetes diagnoses of 41%, researchers recently found that the one-step screening method provided few benefits to mothers or newborns. While switching to a one-step process from the previous two-step method increased the number of diagnoses, insulin use, neonatal hypoglycemia, and labor induction also increased with this guideline change.

While the number of women diagnosed with gestational diabetes did increase, the overall findings of the study don’t suggest a benefit of adopting the one-step approach over a two-step screening. The intent of the one-step method was to decrease the risk of adverse outcomes like cesarean delivery and macrosomia, but this study found that the one-step screening may not be identifying the population most at risk.

These findings were published in Obstetrics and Gynecology on September 27, 2018.

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