Study name: GILD Status: Ongoing data collection
Glycaemic control in labour with diabetes
Contact:
GILD@nottingham.ac.uk
Lead Investigator:
Nia Jones
What is the study about?
Women with diabetes in pregnancy have their blood sugar levels closely monitored during labour in order to minimise the effects of high sugar on their baby after birth. High blood sugar in the mother can cause low blood sugar in the baby. However, this monitoring is intrusive and expensive. New evidence suggests that it may not be as important for preventing problems in the baby as previously thought. This is an important issue as diabetes in pregnancy is increasing in the UK. It currently affects 5% of all pregnant women. Most have gestational diabetes, which develops during pregnancy and goes away after birth, with the rest having diabetes before they get pregnant.
The GILD study aims to design a future randomised clinical trial to compare blood sugar monitoring strategies via a four-stage scoping programme of work. The study will collect current clinical guidelines for monitoring blood sugar, survey health care professionals regarding current practice and training needs, survey women regarding their experience of birth with diabetes, collect data regarding prevalence and issues with blood sugar monitoring, and ascertain the acceptability of a future trial design.
Who can take part in the study?
This study includes participation from women with experience of labour in diabetes, women who are currently pregnant with diabetes and a range of health care professionals including midwives, obstetricians, neonatologists and endocrinologists
What is being tested in the study?
As GILD is a scoping study, there is no intervention.
What are we trying to find out?
The outcome of the study is to design a trial which is feasible and acceptable to conduct to assess whether permissive control of labour in diabetes is equally safe to the tight control which is currently used.
How many patients do we need?
There is no formal sample size for this study as participants are not being recruited.
Funder:
NIHR - HTA