The rate of gestational diabetes in the United States is somewhere between 4.6% and 9.4%, according to investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers compared data from birth certificates collected from 16 states to data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) in 21 states. PRAMS is a CDC-led surveillance project that works with state health departments to collect population-based data on maternal experiences before, during, and after pregnancy.
In 2010, the prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus was 4.6% as listed on birth certificates, 8.7% on the PRAMS scale, and 9.2% as reported on either the PRAMS scale or birth certificates. The percent agreement between the sources was 94.1%, wrote Carla L. DeSisto, M.P.H., and her associates at the CDC (Prev. Chronic Dis. 2014;11:130415[doi:10.5888/pcd11.130415]).
There was no significant difference in gestational diabetes prevalence between the two study periods examined – 8.1% in 2007-08 and 8.5% in 2009-10, according to an analysis of PRAMS data from 123,373 women. In both time periods, Utah had the lowest prevalence (5.7% and 5.6%, respectively) and Rhode Island had the highest (10.4% and 11.7%).