Key findings
- Compared with no reminder, a postal reminder was two to four times more likely to encourage women who had experienced gestational diabetes mellitus to take a blood glucose test three months after delivery.
- There was no difference if the reminder was sent to the woman only, the physician only or to both the woman and the physician.

Background
Some women experience high blood glucose concentrations during pregnancy (termed gestational diabetes mellitus). Although these high blood glucose concentrations usually normalise immediately after birth, women who have experienced GDM are at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future. It is therefore important that they are regularly tested for higher than normal blood glucose levels (to detect type 2 diabetes or ’impaired glucose tolerance’ which is a prediabetic state sometimes preceding type 2 diabetes), starting in the months after they have given birth. However, for a variety of reasons, many women do not get their blood glucose tested after experiencing GDM.