Screening for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus and its Prevalence in Bangladesh

Abstract

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has shown different important health complications for mothers and children across the globe. Establishing the prevalence of GDM in many communities is no longer new, especially in developed nations. However, there is still a lack of knowledge regarding prevalence in many developing nations due to a lack of data.Objective: This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus and how knowledge level influences the risk in Bangladesh. Research Design and Methods: This involves a comprehensive literature search of different studies across databases such as PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Google-scholar, Frontiers, and PLOS One, national journal databases for those published up to September 2022. In addition, different combinations of search tags and keywords were also used, such as prevalence, gestational diabetes mellitus, Bangladesh, and screening to retrieve articles in English investigating the majority of the Gestational diabetes mellitus. Sixteen publications relating to the research questions were collected and reviewed. Data on gestational diabetes and its prevalence were collected. Conclusion: This review study has shown gestational diabetes to be of higher prevalence in Bangladesh, especially among old pregnant women. However, women's knowledge level is average regardless of literacy level or social class. Therefore, there is a need for further research in the field. Policymakers also need to develop new policies for preventing and managing the condition among those at high risk.