Gestational Diabetes Rose Every Year in the US Since 2016

Study of 12.6 million births shows 36 percent jump in past decade

Gestational diabetes rose every single year in the U.S. from 2016 through 2024, according to a new Northwestern Medicine analysis of more than 12 million U.S. births published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The condition, which raises health risks for both mother and baby, shot up 36 percent over the nine-year period (from 58 to 79 cases per 1,000 births) and increased across every racial and ethnic group.

“Gestational diabetes has been persistently increasing for more than 10 years, which means whatever we have been trying to do to address diabetes in pregnancy has not been working,” said senior author Nilay Shah, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology.

The findings update the research team’s earlier work covering 2011–2019, confirming nearly 15 years of uninterrupted increases. Gestational diabetes, a form of glucose intolerance first diagnosed during pregnancy, carries immediate pregnancy risks and increases the chance of future diabetes and heart disease for both the mother and the child. Shah said the alarming trend likely reflects worsening health among young Americans.

“The health of young adults has been persistently worsening — less healthful diets, less exercise, more obesity,” Shah said. “These trends likely underlie why the rates of diabetes during pregnancy have gone up.”

The study is the most current national analysis of gestational diabetes trends in the U.S. For the study, the Northwestern scientists analyzed every U.S. birth for first singleton pregnancies from 2016 to 2024, using birth certificate data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The team then broke down the data by race and ethnicity and found that women who are American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or from other Pacific Islander groups had substantially higher gestational diabetes rates than other groups.

“This is particularly important because these populations tend to be the least well-represented in health research, so we actually understand very little about why these groups have such high rates,” Shah said.

Here’s how many women per 1,000 births had gestational diabetes in 2024:

•     137 per 1,000 – American Indian/Alaska Native
•     131 per 1,000 – Asian
•     126 per 1,000 – Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
•     85 per 1,000 – Hispanic
•     71 per 1,000 – White
•     67 per 1,000 – Black

“The reasons for the differences in gestational diabetes rates across individual groups are an important area for further research,” Shah said. See tables and charts from the study for visuals of the national rise over time and the rates within each racial and ethnic group, including Asian and Hispanic categories presented in detailed subgroups.

“We saw a lot of variation within Asian and Hispanic groups, which often gets overlooked in research,” noted first author Emily Lam, a third-year medical student at Feinberg.

“These data clearly show that we are not doing enough to support the health of the U.S. population, especially young women before and during pregnancy,” Shah said. “Public health and policy interventions should focus on helping all people access high-quality care and have the time and means to maintain healthful behaviors.”