Effects of mHealth-Based Lifestyle Interventions on Gestational Diabetes Mellitus in Pregnant Women With Overweight and Obesity: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background The increasing incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a global health problem that is more likely to occur in pregnant women with overweight or obesity. Adhering to a healthy lifestyle is associated with a reduced risk of GDM. With the development of IT, mobile health (mHealth) interventions have become widely available in health care. However, there are no definitive conclusions on the effectiveness of mHealth-based lifestyle interventions in preventing GDM. Objective This study aims to evaluate the impact of mHealth-based lifestyle interventions on GDM and other pregnancy outcomes in pregnant women with overweight or obesity. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted in 5 English databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, CENTRAL, and CINAHL) and 4 Chinese databases (CBM, CNKI, Vip, and Wanfang) to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effectiveness of mHealth-based interventions for GDM from inception to January 10, 2023. In total, 2 authors independently screened the studies and extracted the data. The quality of the included studies was examined using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. Data synthesis was conducted using Review Manager (version 5.4; The Cochrane Collaboration). Results A total of 16 RCTs with 7351 participants were included in this study. The included studies were published between 2014 and 2021 and were conducted in China, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Norway. The sample sizes of the studies ranged from 75 to 2202, and the duration of the mHealth-based lifestyle interventions ranged from 4 to 28 weeks. Compared with usual care, mHealth-based lifestyle interventions significantly reduced the incidence of GDM (odds ratio [OR] 0.74, 95% CI 0.56-0.96; P=.03; I2=65%), preterm birth (OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.48-0.87; P=.004; I2=25%), macrosomia (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.40-0.87; P=.008; I2=59%), and gestational weight gain (mean difference=−1.12 kg, 95% CI −1.44 to −0.80; P<.001; I2=43%). The subgroup analysis showed that interventions delivered via apps (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.37-0.83; P=.004; I2=44%), provided by obstetricians (OR 0.69, 95% CI 0.51-0.93; P=.02; I2=60%), and targeted at Asian populations (OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.34-0.58; P<.001; I2=0%) and that used the International Association of Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Groups diagnostic criteria (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.39-0.86; P=.007; I2=69%) showed a statistically significant reduction in the risk of GDM. Conclusions mHealth-based lifestyle interventions had a favorable impact on the prevention of GDM in pregnant women with overweight and obesity. Future studies need to further explore the potential of mHealth-based interventions for GDM through better design and more rigorous large-scale RCTs. Trial Registration PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42021286995; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=286995