Diabetic Pregnancy causes Childhood Obesity

Pregnant women, diagnosed with hyperglycemia (high levels of blood sugar) are more likely to have obese children, suggests a recent research published in the September issue of the journal Diabetes Care.

A raised blood-sugar level, even if it is not high enough to be classified as diabetes can cause women to have abnormally large infants (requiring C-sections or potentially dangerous natural deliveries) and also raises the risk of obesity in the child by the time he turns 5-7 years of age.

Hyperglycemic women, who remain untreated, are more likely to have over-weight children than those with normal blood sugar or those who are diabetic but receive timely treatment.

However, solace in the news is that the risk of obesity can be warded off by treating high blood sugar levels during pregnancy with proper medication, exercise and following a correct diet.

“The important message is that the risk of child obesity related to gestational diabetes is potentially reversible,” said Dr. Teresa Hillier, the study's lead author.

Dr. Hillier, along with colleagues at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore. examined 9,439 mother-child pairs enrolled in Kaiser Permanente's Hawaii and Northwest regions from 1995 to 2000.

It was found that mothers’ level of blood sugar was directly proportional to the raised risk of obesity in children. The finding was true for all racial and ethnic groups. 24 percent of the children, whose mothers had normal blood sugar levels, were overweight and 12 percent were obese.

Among mothers with untreated high blood-sugar, 35 percent of the children were overweight and 20 percent were obese. In the group where diabetes was treated, 28 percent of the children were overweight and 17 percent were obese.

The research, funded by the American Diabetes Association was conducted to learn how gestational diabetes —that appears for the first time during pregnancy, and often disappears after the baby is born — affects a child's risk for obesity. It did not include women with pre-existing diabetes.

3 to 8 per cent of the women in the United States are affected with gestational diabetes.