Association of Hypothyroidism with Diabetes Mellitus in Antenatal Women: A Cross Sectional Study

Introduction: Pregnancy is a state of endocrinal changes and increased metabolic demand. In Western India, the prevalence of gestational diabetes has been reported as 9.5%. Similarly about 10-15% of antenatal women have thyroid dysfunction in 1st half of pregnancy which is hypo or hyperthyroidism. Objectives- The purpose of this study is to evacuate the association of Hypothyroidism with Diabetes mellitus in antenatal women. Material and Methods – A cross sectional study was carried out in the Obstetrics & Gynaecology department of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, AMU, Aligarh. Total 420 women between 16 to 32 years of age were enrolled in the study after taking consent. All antenatal women were screened for diabetes and thyroid dysfunction in order to determine the prevalence of diabetes and hypothyroidism in pregnancy and to find the association between hypothyroidism and diabetes mellitus. Result- Among 420 antenatal women screened for diabetes mellitus, 38 (9.05%) were found to be diabetic women and 87 were hypothyroid (20.71%). Out of 38 women diagnosed with diabetes 15 (39.5%) antenatal women were associated with hypothyroidism. Among 382 nondiabetic, 72 (18.8%) women were associated with hypothyroidism. The association of thyroid dysfunction with diabetes mellitus was statistically significant (p <0.05). Conclusion- Prevalence of diabetes was more or less the same as compared to previous studies while the prevalence of hypothyroidism was much higher than previous studies though the cut off level of serum TSH was low in our study. Thyroid dysfunction hypothyroidism was strongly associated with diabetes mellitus in pregnancy.