Event Details

Professor Callaway and A/Professor de Jersey will review the very compelling reasons for the diagnosis and management of gestational diabetes.  They will highlight population health data after implementation of the last update of diagnostic criteria, and will also consider their pandemic experience of GDM diagnosis based on fasting glucose.Together, they will consider the diagnosis more broadly, in terms of the associations with unintended consequences for mental wellbeing, restrictive eating, stress, overtreatment, socioeconomic status and consumer feedback regarding lived experience of gestational diabetes and stigma.

• The diagnosis of gestational diabetes needs the same care and sensitivity as any other highly confronting diagnosis, and yet we tend to treat it a little flippantly. We need to carefully understand the relationship between the diagnosis of gestational diabetes, weight stigma and discrimination.
• There are a range of consequences of a diagnosis of gestational diabetes (unnecessary health care interventions, mental health challenges, body image issues, restrictive eating, shame and stigma, loss of birthing choices) that have not adequately been considered in the research to date.
• Uncertainty in the evidence around benefits and harms of diagnosis and treatment in low-risk women needs careful consideration, especially in the context of glycaemic variability.   
• The audience will be asked to consider how we maintain the benefits of gestational diabetes diagnosis and treatment for those where there is evidence it will help (improved neonatal outcomes, less preeclampsia) without increasing unnecessary health care interventions and impacting poorly on women’s wellbeing.

Professor Leonie Callaway's clinical practice includes half a day per week in private practice at the Wesley Medical Centre, where she focuses on preconception care, obstetric medicine, and complex subacute general medicine.  Her area of clinical and research expertise relates to pregnancy medicine and life course medicine – which includes preconception care, and an understanding of the developmental origins of adult health and disease. She has interests in obesity, metabolism, diabetes, hypertension, adverse childhood experiences and weight-based stigma and discrimination. 

A/Prof Susan de Jersey's team work to implement and evaluate routine practice changes to ensure women are provided with evidence informed, person centred care. Susan has a lived experience of gestational diabetes mellitus in two of her pregnancies.