Developing diabetes during pregnancy might be expected to motivate women to take better care of themselves, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. They have less healthy diets and are more likely to smoke than women whose pregnancies were free of diabetes, a large new study shows.

Gestational diabetes occurs in up to 8 percent of US pregnancies. While it usually disappears after pregnancy, as many as half of women diagnosed with the condition will develop type 2 diabetes within five years, Dr. Edith C. Kieffer and colleagues note in the journal Diabetes Care.

An intervention that encourages people to exercise and eat better, known as the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), has been shown to help prevent women who had gestational diabetes from developing type 2 diabetes later on, they add.

To compare lifestyle factors among women with and without a history of gestational diabetes, Kieffer and her team at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor looked at data from a 2001-2003 survey of 177,420 women aged 18 to 44.

All showed low levels of physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption, while nearly one quarter smoked, the researchers found. The 4700 women who developed diabetes in pregnancy were, on average, less educated, more likely to be obese, and rated their own health worse than those who did not.

Women who lived with children younger than 18 and had developed gestational diabetes were even less likely to eat adequate amounts of fruit and vegetables and more likely to smoke, the researchers found.

“Despite the success of the DPP in preventing or delaying the onset of diabetes in women with a history of gestational diabetes, many women may be unaware of their risk for future diabetes, and others do not take steps to reduce their risks,” they conclude.

SOURCE: Diabetes Care, August 2006.