A new research suggested that treatment given to pregnant with mild forms of gestational diabetes; including diet and exercise, self-monitoring of blood glucose levels and possibly insulin therapy; are less likely to have serious birth complications.

Treatment also reduced the risk of pregnancy induced high-blood pressure and preeclampsia in which the blood pressure is high with protein in the urine. A phenomenal result during the study was the absence of any still birth or newborn deaths.

Gestational diabetes occurs in 14 percent of all pregnancies depending on factors such as the mother's age and weight.

The study randomly assigned 958 women with gestational diabetes to treatment or no treatment. Women in the treatment group were given dietary counseling and only 7 percent of them required insulin.

Lead author Mark Landon, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Ohio State University Medical Center says that many obstetricians screen for and attempt to treat gestational diabetes but may not pay as much attention to treating women with milder forms of the disease.

Such doctors might not be convinced with the fact that treatment can improve the condition of the mother and the child.

The study, sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, is the second of its kind to show benefit. The previous attempt was made through an Australian study in 2005 which also found that treating gestational diabetes rescued the rates of serious complications around the delivery time.

The results of the two trials "clearly support the treatment of gestational diabetes," David Sacks, an OB/GYN at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Bellflower, Calif., writes in an editorial accompanying Landon's study in The New England Journal of Medicine.