04/09/2025
A few years back, I was in conversation with a hospital-based midwife colleague about a shared frustration.
We were both so tired of hearing that women who had been told they had gestational diabetes (or GD, which is a debatable label in itself) were also being told they needed induction.
"The problem is," she said, "that some obstetricians tell women they're at high risk because they have GD, and that induction is the solution, but there's no evidence for that. But the lack of studies mean the issues are complex and there's no easy place I can point women to, so they can read more."
I knew just what she meant.
I had written about GD in my Inducing Labour book, but our conversation made me realise that I didn't have a blog post on this topic.
I wrote one that week.
Since I wrote it, my blog post on Induction for gestational diabetes: what's the evidence? has become one of my most popular.
And today I have checked and updated it, to ensure that it stays relevant and useful for the thousands of women, families, midwives and birth workers who visit it every year.
You can read it at https://www.sarawickham.com/articles-2/induction-for-gestational-diabetes/
I hope you'll find it useful.
