Gestational diabetes rate rises in Fiji

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 36

Gestational diabetes rate rises in Fiji

NZPA By JALE MOALA special correspondent Suva Increasing numbers of pregnant women in Fiji, particularly Indians, are suffering from diabetes, according to a preliminary survey in Suva. In the survey, which was made at the Anderson Maternity Unit at Colonial War Memorial Hospital, 729 women in three agegroups were tested for diabetes. Preliminary findings showed the incidence of gestational diabetes was 3 per cent but in Indian women over the age of 30, the rate was 17 per cent. Gestational diabetes occurs in women when the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin during pregnancy. Dr Rajat Gyaneshwar, a gynaecologist consultant

and a staff nurse, Meri Mohandas, who conducted the survey, said that if undetected there was a danger of the baby’s dying in the womb; complications during delivery; the baby having breathing difficulties and a high risk of dying after birth; and the mother’s contracting infections (both vaginal and urinary) and developing high blood pressure. Dr Gyaneshwar' said that half the number of the women who hpd gestational diabetes eventually developed diabetes.

Other women who are likely to develop gestational diabetes are those with a family history of diabetes, those who are overweight, and those women who have previously had a fat baby, or a baby with congenital abnormality.

A study in 1965 showed that the prevalence of diabetes in urban Fijians was 0.6 per cent. By 1980, according to a national diabetes and cardiovascular disease survey, the. incidence of diabetes had increased to a rate of 25 per cent. In Indians, the prevalence was 5.7 per cent which had increased four times by 1980. The survey concluded that there was a high prevalence of diabetes in Fiji. Indians had one of the highest rates in the Pacific and there was a marked rural-urban difference in Fijians. Up to 80 per cent of diabetes in the community was undetected and there had been a marked increase in diabetes over the last 15 years, the survey said.