Diabetes is the most frequently encountered endocrine disorder in pregnancy and is associated with adverse outcomes. Despite the urgent need for interventions to improve the outcomes for pregnancies complicated with diabetes, and the consistent recognition of preconception care as an effective intervention, there has been lack of systematically produced evidence to support it. My first publication (Preconception Care for Diabetic Women for Improving Maternal and Fetal Outcomes: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis) was the first systematically produced high level evidence addressing the effectiveness and the safety of all aspects of preconception care. This publication had high impact on practice and research evident by the incorporation of its findings in clinical guidelines and the number of times it was cited in the literature. My second publication (Pre-pregnancy care for women with pre-gestational diabetes mellitus: a systematic review and meta-analysis) was designed for deeper analysis of the safety of preconception care. The third and the fourth publications addressed the prevalence of pre-gestational and gestational diabetes and the rate of complications associated with diabetes in pregnancy in Saudi Arabia and contributed to the quantification of diabetes in pregnancy as a public health problem in the country. These two publications provided important information, considering that there was paucity of publications about diabetes in pregnancy in Saudi Arabia for more than a decade, and they gave the needed evidence to revise the hospital policy for screening and management of diabetes in pregnancy as well as the implementation of preconception care for women with pre-existing diabetes. My fifth publication investigated an important clinical intervention for pregnant women with diabetes which is induction of labour. Similar to the second and third publication there was paucity of information about the indications and the determinants of successful induction of labour in Saudi Arabia. This publication was the first to address this important intervention in the practice of obstetrics in general and in the specific management of women with diabetes. Thus my work in "diabetes in pregnancy as a clinical and public health problem" provided an important evaluation of interventions at the clinical and public health levels and important information for the management of diabetic pregnant women in Saudi Arabia and across the world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:618981 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Wahabi, Haifa A. A. |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/63104/ |
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