The cohort of NHANES participants, n = 30,442, was used for this study. Of the participants, we excluded 15,177 who were male, 568 who had interview data only, 4,170 who were aged less than 12 years, and 1,788 who were aged 12 to 19 years, leaving 8,739 women for the study. Of these women, we excluded 1,141 who were never pregnant, 7 who refused to answer or answered “don’t know,” and 1,075 for whom response information was missing. The 6,516 remaining, who had a history of pregnancy, were asked if they had ever had GDM diagnosed. We excluded 5,996 who reported no GDM, 75 who reported borderline, 12 who answered “don’t know,” and 12 who were currently pregnant. Of 421 with a history of GDM (group A), we excluded 128 who had DM, leaving 293 eligible for diabetes screening. Among the 293 eligible for screening, 245 did not have DM, 11 had borderline DM, and 37 had PreDM. They were asked “Have you had a blood test for high blood sugar or diabetes within the past 3 years?” We excluded 2 who answered “don’t know” and 7 who were using medication for DM. Of the remaining 284 women (group B), 117 were screened and 107 were unscreened for DM.

Figure. Flow diagram for cohort selection of women with GDM screened or unscreened for DM, NHANES, 2007–2008, 2009–2010, and 2011–2012. Abbreviations: DM diabetes mellitus; GDM, gestational diabetes mellitus; NHANES, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; PreDM, prediabetes.

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