Pregnancy alert for diabetics

WOMEN WITH type I diabetes should avoid pregnancy until their sugar levels are under control. That’s according to the author of a new study showing that for women with type I diabetes, poor control of sugar levels during pregnancy is linked with an increased risk of heart anomalies in the developing baby.

In one in about every 200 pregnancies in Ireland the mother has type I diabetes before conceiving, according to Prof Fionnuala McAuliffe, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital. “We know that babies of mothers with pre-gestational diabetes are higher risk and it’s related to how high the sugars are around the time of conception and during pregnancy,” she explained.

Prof McAuliffe, who is professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at University College Dublin, has previously found that in diabetic mothers with high blood sugar levels, the foetal heart can show changes at as early as 14 weeks. Now new research published in the journal, Diabetes Care, has extended that work.

The Health Research Board-funded study found a link between poorly controlled sugar levels and biochemical indicators of heart stress in cord blood at birth.

“The levels of those biochemicals were hugely increased compared to normal, so it backs up the studies on the structural changes we had found before,” said Prof McAuliffe.

She stressed that most of the babies born to mothers with diabetes in the study were clinically well, but suggested the heart changes could also have an impact in the longer term.

“We know that for babies of mothers with diabetes, down the road in childhood and adulthood there are slightly increased risks of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. So perhaps there are changes in the heart during pregnancy that could lead to these increased rates of diseases later in life.”