Successful outcome after diagnosis of Thalassemia Minor and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) in 1st Pregnancy.
The mother came to us for the first time at around 16 weeks of pregnancy.
Ideally screening for Chromosomal Abnormalities of the baby should be done by 11-13 weeks by COMBINED TEST. However, that test was not done here. So we advised Quadruple Test to look for Chromosomal Abnormalities. It turned out to be normal.
Ideally Thalassemia Screening should be done before planning pregnancy. In this case we did it around 17 weeks and surprisingly it cane out as Thalassemia Minor (CARRIER). So the couple was in stress. However, husband's blood test came as normal. So no further intervention was needed.
Indian Women are at higher risk of developing GDM. So screening fir GDM should be done with 75 gram oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) at first booking and again at 24 weeks. Undiagnosed and untreated GDM can cause sudden death if the baby before delivery and also problems after birth. Mother is at high risk if developing Diabetes in later life. In this case we could perform the test only around 24 weeks. The diagnosis of GDM was done. Simple dietary measures and oral medicine were sufficient to control the sugar.
Finally delivery was done and both mother and baby are doing well.
Thus, you need proper screening in each Pregnancy as per the Latest Guidelines.
PS- Published with Kind Permission from the Patient.