Is vaginal progesterone treatment associated with the development of gestational diabetes? A retrospective case-control study

Purpose To determine the incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in pregnant women who received vaginal progesterone due to short cervical length or to prevent recurrent preterm birth. Methods In this retrospective study, we included 190 women with singleton pregnancies at risk for preterm birth who received vaginal natural progesterone (200 mg daily between gestational weeks 16 + 0 and 36 + 0) for a minimum of 4 weeks and delivered > 28 weeks. The control group consisted of 242 age- and body mass index (BMI)-matched patients without progesterone administration. Data were acquired from a database containing prospectively collected information. Patients with pre-existing diabetes, and conception after in vitro fertilisation procedure were excluded. Results The incidence of GDM did not differ significantly between the progesterone-treated and the control group (14.7% vs. 16.9%, respectively; p = 0.597). In a binary regression model, patients with higher pre-pregnancy BMI (OR 1.1; p = 0.006), and those with a family history of diabetes had a higher risk for GDM development (OR 1.8; p = 0.040), whereas vaginal progesterone treatment had no significant influence (p = 0.580). Conclusion The use of vaginal progesterone for the prevention of recurrent preterm delivery and in women with a short cervix does not seem to be associated with an increased risk of GDM.