Advances in researches on adverse effects of gestational diabetes mellitus on mother and child and lifestyle intervention

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as any degree of glucose intolerance with onset of or first recognition during pregnancy. It is one of the common complications during pregnancy. GDM has adverse effects on women and their offspring, including not only short-term impacts, but also long-term effects. Guidelines recommend that dietary and lifestyle interventions should be the preferred GDM treatment strategies. We reviewed current research progress on various lifestyle interventions for GDM, and suggested that the implementation of lifestyle interventions for GDM women, especially the joint lifestyle interventions, would bring certain health benefits. However, the evidences were limited by insufficient number of current randomized controlled trials, small sample size and large variation of methodological quality. More randomized controlled trials with high quality in the future will be needed to evaluate the effects of lifestyle interventions on GDM women and their offspring, especially the long-term effects.