The researchers from the University of Toronto, Mount Sinai Hospital and the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences found that gestational diabetes increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. The researchers analyzed the data collected from 659,164 pregnant women in Canada in nine years.

The women subjects of the study did not have a history of diabetes prior to pregnancy. 21,823 women developed diabetes during pregnancy. The study showed that the rate of gestational diabetes rose during the nine-year study period from 3.2% in 1995 to 3.6% in 2001. Similarly the number of women who developed Type 2 diabetes after a diagnosis of gestational diabetes rose from 3.7% at nine months after delivery to 18.9% nine years after delivery.

The researchers claimed that 18.9 per cent of women who had gestational diabetes developed Type 2 diabetes within nine years of pregnancy whereas 2 per cent women developed Type 2 diabetes that did not have gestational diabetes. The study also showed that the number of women having gestational diabetes is increasing in Ontario.

The researcher said, "Unlike other studies, it covered a large, well-defined geographic region with a population of 13 million, which allowed us to make a more robust assessment of the risk of Type 2 diabetes after gestational diabetes than has been possible in previous studies."

The only loophole in the study was that the researchers didn’t studied the facts linked to their subjects' ethnicity and obesity and blood-sugar levels while they were pregnant, all of which are risk factors for diabetes .The researchers added that women who had gestational diabetes should keep a regular check on their blood sugar levels. Moreover doctors should advise women with gestational diabetes to follow some preventive measure after their pregnancy to avoid Type 2 diabetics in later years.