Project will remind women to check for diabetes after pregnancy

A five-year project will remind women who have had gestational diabetes to get checked for type 2 diabetes after giving birth. The initiative is being run by three Steno Diabetes Centres, DR reports.

Kamilla Bagger was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes seven years after giving birth to her daughter. She had developed gestational diabetes during the pregnancy in 2016, but her blood sugar returned to normal after the birth and she believed the condition was gone.

“I was being checked for something completely different, and then I was told I had diabetes. It was a huge shock, because I thought I had been in the clear,” says Bagger, 42, who lives with her family in Aarup on western Funen.

Women who have had gestational diabetes face a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the years after giving birth. Up to half may develop the condition within 10 years, according to Dorte Møller Jensen, a professor and senior consultant at Steno Diabetes Center Odense. Around six per cent of pregnant women in Denmark develop gestational diabetes.

The project, involving Steno Diabetes Centres in Odense, North Jutland and Zealand, will send women who have had or develop gestational diabetes a letter reminding them to visit their GP for a blood test to check their long-term blood sugar levels. Early detection can allow treatment to begin and may help prevent complications, Møller Jensen says.

Bagger says she would have welcomed such a reminder. She hopes other women will benefit from the project.