Evaluation of Treatment Strategies to Manage Diabetes Mellitus in Pregnancy: Use of Fetal Sonography Compared to Monitoring of Maternal Blood Glucose Alone

Abstract

Introduction When planning the treatment of women with gestational diabetes, the current standard approach also takes fetal growth development into account. The treatment of pregnant women with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM) used to be based exclusively on maternal blood glucose values. This study investigated the impact of including fetal growth parameters in the monitoring of pregnant women with type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Patients/Method 199 pregnant women with type 1 DM were included in a cohort study. The patient population was divided into two study cohorts. In the mBG cohort (n = 94; investigation period: 1994 – 2005) treatment was monitored using only maternal blood glucose (mBG) values; the aim was to achieve standard target glucose values (mean BG < 5.5 mmol/l, postprandial: at 1 h < 7.7 mmol/l, at 2 h < 6.6 mmol/l). In the fUS collective (n = 101, investigation period: 2006 – 2014) fetal growth parameters were additionally included when monitoring treatment from the 22nd week of gestation, and maternal target glucose values were then individually adjusted to take account of fetal growth. This study aimed to investigate the impact of these two different ways of monitoring treatment on perinatal and peripartum outcomes.

Results 91.4% of all patients were normoglycemic at the time of delivery (HbA_1c < 6.7%); 58.9% of patients achieved strict normoglycemia (HbA_1c < 5.7%). No differences were found between the two study cohorts (fUS vs. mBG: HbA_1c < 6.7%: 93.9 vs. 88.4%, n. s.; mean blood glucose (BG): 5.4 ± 0.6 to 6.6 ± 1.1 vs. 5.9 ± 0.7 to 7.4 ± 1.9 mmol/l, n. s.). Patients from the fUS cohort required significantly lower weight-adjusted maximum insulin doses (0.9 ± 0.3 vs. 1.0 ± 0.4 IE/kg bodyweight, p < 0.05). Pregnancy complications occurred significantly less often in the fUS cohort (preeclampsia: 7.1 vs. 20.9%, p = 0.01; premature labor: 4.0 vs. 23.3%, p < 0.001; cervical insufficiency: 0.0 vs. 11.6%, p = 0.001), and there were significantly fewer cases with neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (19.2 vs. 40.7%, p = 0.001). There was no difference in the rates of LGA infants between the two cohorts (21.2 vs. 24.4%, n. s.).

Conclusion Using maternal blood glucose values combined with fetal growth parameters to monitor DM treatment allows therapeutic interventions to be individualized and reduces the risk of maternal and infant morbidity. The metabolism of patients in the fUS cohort was significantly more stable and there were fewer variations in glucose values. It is possible that the detected benefits are due to this metabolic stabilization.

Key words

diabetes mellitus - blood glucose - sonography - complications of pregnancy - fetal outcome

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