A bibliometric and visual analysis of global gestational diabetes mellitus over the past 24 years

Pregnancy is associated with a metabolic burden on women, along with weight gain and insulin resistance. Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is the most common complication of pregnancy and can be defined as a state of glucose intolerance with onset or first recognition during pregnancy. This study presents a bibliometric and visual analysis of GDM research over the past 24 years.

To present a bibliometric and visual analysis of GDM research over the past 24 years and provide new insights for the future development and research direction of GDM.

We retrieved and collected the research literature about GDM in the past 24 years from Web of Science, and analyzed and visualized the research literature from multiple aspects using CiteSpace and VOS viewer.

An analysis of 27660 articles in the field of GDM revealed a significant upward trend in the number of publications over the past 24 years, with authors primarily from the USA and China. Peter Damm and Boyd E Metzger were identified as the most prolific and highly cited authors, respectively. The journal with the highest number of publications was The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine. In addition, keyword co-occurrence analysis indicated that research on GDM mainly focused on risk factors of the disease, clinical diagnosis, and management. The keyword burst analysis of cited references indicated that gut microbiome association with GDM is a hot topic in recent years and requires further long-term planning.

For the first time, this study conducted a multi-index bibliometric analysis of articles in the field of global GDM in the past 24 years. The USA and China are in a leading position in this field. The development of GDM research has transitioned from basic risk factors and clinical classification management to more complex intervention and mechanism studies. The association research between gut microbiome and GDM may be a hot topic in the future. This study is the first to analyze the global field of GDM from multiple indicators by bibliometrics, thus providing new insights into the research hotspots and development trends in the field of GDM.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40200-025-01752-z.