TUESDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Women with gestational diabetes have at least a four-fold risk of developing postpartum diabetes if they have two or more risk factors, according to a study in the November issue of Diabetes Care.

Ute M. Schaefer-Graf, M.D., from St. Joseph's Hospital in Berlin, and colleagues investigated factors associated with the risk of developing postpartum diabetes among 605 Caucasian women with gestational diabetes mellitus.

At a median of 13 weeks after delivery, the researchers found that 21.8 percent of women had an abnormal oral glucose tolerance test (impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance, or diabetes). The risk of postpartum diabetes was higher in obese women, women diagnosed with diabetes at less than 24 weeks' gestation, women with a 1-h antenatal value greater than 200 mg/dL, and women receiving insulin. The risk of postpartum diabetes was lowest for women with fewer than two risk factors (odds ratio, 1.3), higher for women with two risk factors (odds ratio, 4.0), and highest for women with greater than two risk factors (odds ratio, 10.5).

"Women with two [or more] risk factors have a high risk for an abnormal postpartum oral glucose tolerance test, and 86 percent of postpartum diabetes is diagnosed within this group," Schaefer-Graf and colleagues conclude.

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