The nurse's competencies when facing the problems generated by gestational diabetes in women's and children's health

Abstract

This study discusses the importance of nurses facing the problems caused to the health of women and children by gestational diabetes. This is an integrative review, with the following guiding question: What are the nurse's competencies regarding the problems caused to the health of women and children by gestational diabetes? The search for publications was conducted in the Virtual Health Library database, using the following DeCs descriptors: "Nursing Care"; "Gestational Diabetes", and "Role of the Nurse".  As inclusion criteria, articles were selected with full texts in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, published between the years 2011 and 2021. As exclusion criteria, articles that did not address the selected theme, that were outside the temporal space of the research and incomplete texts were discarded. This article was subdivided into three categories, as follows: The nurse as health educator to patients with gestational diabetes, Complications caused by gestational diabetes mellitus during pregnancy and in the puerperium, and The Nurse and the Prevention of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, which helped to identify the nurse's role in the promotion and prevention of gestational diabetes, as well as in the early diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus. It is then concluded that the nurse plays an important role in primary care through the evaluation and monitoring of prenatal care.