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• Posted January 13, 2026

Exercise, Diet Can Help Counter Gestational Diabetes

Exercising and eating right can help a pregnant woman significantly reduce her risk for gestational diabetes, a new evidence review says.

Those sorts of healthy lifestyle choices reduced the odds of gestational diabetes by up to 20%, researchers reported Jan. 7 in The BMJ.

“Our findings show these interventions should be integrated into routine (prenatal) care so all women can benefit,” said senior researcher Dr. Shakila Thangaratinam, a professor of women’s health at the University of Liverpool in the U.K.

“Lifestyle interventions in pregnancy are an achievable, evidence-based approach to improving maternal and offspring health and should be supported through policy and practice,” Thanagaratinam added in a news release.

For the new study, researchers combined data from 104 previous studies involving nearly 36,000 women.

In gestational diabetes, a woman’s blood sugar levels become elevated during pregnancy, researchers said in background notes.

The condition increases odds of stillbirth, preterm birth and pre-eclampsia, and also raises long-term risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease in both mother and child.

Results showed that lifestyle changes lowered risk of gestational diabetes between 10% to 20%, depending on the group of women being examined and the definition of gestational diabetes researchers used.

Exercise – walking, aerobics, strength training, swimming – proved most effective in countering gestational diabetes, researchers said.

"Pregnancy is a unique time in the life course where we can support mothers to improve health for themselves and their infants,” researcher Dr. Fionnuala McAuliffe said in a news release. She’s a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the National Maternity Hospital Dublin in Ireland.

The review showed that women did better when pursuing these sorts of lifestyle changes in a group setting, with newly trained facilitators.

However, researchers also found that less-educated women benefitted less from lifestyle changes, suggesting that they aren’t receiving the same level of support.

“By combining a large number of trials with detailed individual-level data, we were able to identify not just whether lifestyle interventions work, but which elements make them most effective,” lead researcher John Allotey of the University of Liverpool said in a news release.

“As gestational diabetes continues to rise globally, this kind of evidence is crucial for designing interventions that work for all women,” Allotey said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on gestational diabetes.

SOURCES: University College Dublin, news release, Jan. 7, 2026; The BMJ, Jan. 7, 2026