In a major initiative the Tamil Nadu Government has started a health-oriented programme of screening all pregnant women visiting the government-run health institutions in the State for gestational diabetes. The screening programme will cover all the pre-natal clinics of the State. For this many of the public health centres are being equipped to test for diabetes and other diseases.

"We would be able to test four lakh pregnant women this year and 385 of our public health centres (PHCs) have been equipped with semi auto analyzers and we plan to equip another 385 this year", said Dr Padmanaban, director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. There are a total of 1421 PHCs in the State.

While interacting with Pharmabiz, Dr. Padmanaban said several studies have shown that gestational diabetes the elevation of maternal blood glucose first seen during pregnancy when unchecked could put both mother and baby at risk of developing the disease at a later stage.

"Screening for GDM is usually performed around 24-28 weeks of gestation, but studies have shown that testing as early as during the 16th week can diagnose the disease. Identifying the disease at an earlier stage will help in early intervention and hence reduce complications", he said.

Though it is a general practice to test once during pregnancy, it will be better if test is conducted during all trimesters of pregnancy. The early screening is useful only for detecting the disease. The screening programme will adopt not just early screening but screening during all trimesters. The director expressed hope that the percentage of women who will undergo testing thrice will increase this year.

He said studies on gestational diabetes have shown that simple diet management would be sufficient to keep the glucose level of the pregnant women under control. So it is easy to reduce the risk of both mother and child from becoming diabetic after a few years.