High glucose in pregnancy is harmful to the mother and the child for several years

Women who have high blood glucose levels during pregnancy, even if they are not high enough to be defined as gestational diabetes, have a significantly greater probability of developing type 2 diabetes a decade after pregnancy if compared tomothers who have normal glucose levels in pregnancy.

In addition, the children of mothers with high blood glucose levels are more likely to be obese, as can be seen from a study published in JAMA, financed by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Renal Diseases of the United States.

The work, which has been carried out with data from the HAPO study, has shown that even slightly high blood glucose levels increased the risks of complications for the baby both before and shortly after birth.These results can make the term of gestational diabetes redefine.

The aforementioned study compared the long -term effects of blood glucose levels in mothers that would have fulfilled the new definition of gestational diabetes with those who did not.The researchers set out to learn if moderate increases in blood glucose increased the risk of the mother to develop type 2 diabetes or prediabetes and the risk of obesity in the mother's children at least a decade after childbirth.

At work it has been proven that high blood glucose damage, even with relatively high levels, both for the mother and the child, extend for more than a decade.

Among women with high blood glucose levels during pregnancy, almost 11 percent developed type 2 diabetes during the study monitoring period, between 10 and 14 years after delivery and approximately 42 percent developed prediabetes.If compared to women who did not have high levels of glucose during pregnancy, approximately 2 percent presented type 2 diabetes and 18 percent prediabetes.

obesity

The authors of the study also analyzed 4,832 children with overweight and obesity, collecting their data from the body mass index (BMI), the percentage of body fat, the thickness of the skin fold and the circumference of the waist.They observed that children born to mothers with high glucose levels were more likely to be obese.For example, when using BMI, 19 percent of children born to mothers with high blood glucose levels were obese, compared to 10 percent of mothers' children with normal glucose.

"HAPO and its follow -up study have demonstrated the long -term harmful effects of the increase in blood glucose both in the mother and the child and the importance of early intervention for women at risk of gestational diabetes," said GriffinP. Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Renal Diseases.