The number of pregnant women with type 2 diabetes, which often is linked to obesity and lack of exercise, more than doubled over the past six years. The report called the increase “staggering.”

Gestational diabetes brought on by pregnancy also increased significantly, according to the 29-page report from the state’s Bureau for Public Health.

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“It shows we have a greater problem than many of us realized,” said Peggy Adams, manager of the West Virginia Diabetes Prevention and Control Program. “We believe the rates are going up because West Virginia has such high rates of obesity.”

Diabetes during pregnancy can lead to serious problems for mother and baby, Adams said. Children of diabetic mothers also are more likely to face health problems — obesity, type 2 diabetes and abnormal glucose tolerance — later in life.

Nearly half of West Virginia women with diabetes who gave birth during the past six years had a Cesarean delivery, compared to 30 percent of women without diabetes, the study found. The C-section rate among diabetic women increased from 43 percent to 52 percent during the same period.

Diabetic women also had a higher rate of complications during labor and delivery, the report said.

The study’s authors examined three different sources of data, which all showed a steady increase since 2000 in the percentage of West Virginia women who had diabetes during pregnancy.

As many as 14 percent of pregnant women in the state were diabetic in 2005, the most recent year for which data was available, according to one of those surveys.

Jefferson and Webster counties had the highest rates of pregnant women with diabetes, while Hardy County had the lowest percentage, according to the report.

Hospital costs for deliveries of babies whose mothers have diabetes also are rising, the study found. The average hospital charge for births from women with diabetes was more than $6,000, compared to $4,600 for babies whose mothers weren’t diabetic.

Babies with diabetic mothers also were more likely to have birth defects and be born prematurely, the report said. Meanwhile, mothers with diabetes were more at risk to develop hypertension and other health problems.

The study found that fewer pregnant women in West Virginia today are talking to their doctors and other health-care professionals about diabetes than six years ago.

The report spotlights the need for expanded screening and counseling of pregnant women who have diabetes risk factors, Adams said. Many women become pregnant and don’t know they have diabetes.

Others with diabetes might not realize they’re pregnant in the early weeks.

“It’s so important for women of gestational age to have pre-pregnancy counseling about diabetes, and that doesn’t seem to be happening all the time,” Adams said.

Recent research from the American Diabetes Association found some birth complications increase as pregnant women’s blood glucose levels rise, even at levels not high enough to classify them as diabetic.

Adams said pregnant women with diabetes can have healthy babies as long as they properly manage the disease.

“One of the things we can do is share the information in the report with health-care providers,” Adams said. “Hopefully, we will be able to come up with effective strategies for change.”

Diabetes isn’t just a problem among pregnant women in the state.

West Virginia leads the nation in the percentage of all adults diagnosed with diabetes.

Last year, 12 percent of West Virginia adults reported that they had diabetes, up from 6 percent a decade ago.

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