Recent GDM Lifestyle Intervention

Study Summary

Women with a history of gestational diabetes (GDM) have a substantially increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. In fact, 50-70% of these women will go on to develop type 2 diabetes within the 20 years following their GDM-complicated pregnancy. Perceived risk of developing type 2 diabetes among women with a history of GDM may be particularly important to altering behavior changes associated with reducing risk. Certain populations have lower perceived risk of developing type 2 diabetes, despite having a higher prevalence of the disease. Specifically, African-Americans have a lower perceived risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to whites, despite their more than doubled risk of developing the disease. Improvement in awareness of diabetes risk among African-American women at high-risk of developing type 2 diabetes, such as those with a history of GDM, could reduce future risk of this disease among this group. As such, we will conduct a two-armed, pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate whether a postpartum diabetes education intervention, incorporating nutrition, exercise, and diabetes risk assessment can improve diabetes risk awareness, diet, and physical activity levels at 1-year post-pregnancy among African-American women with a recent history of gestational diabetes. We hypothesize that attendance at a 3-month and 9-month postpartum diabetes education class will: 1. Improve diabetes awareness as measured using the Risk Perception for Developing Diabetes among women in the intervention group compared to women in the control group when measuring at 3-months postpartum compared to 12-months postpartum 2. Improve dietary habits and physical activity levels in the intervention group compared to the control group when measuring at 3-months postpartum compared to 12-months postpartum

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Lifestyle and Risk Assessment class