Pregnant women who were diagnosed with high blood sugar levels have indicated a higher chance of giving birth to babies suffering from heart defects at birth, states a recent Stanford study. The babies may have congenital heart defects due to the elevated blood sugar rates of pregnant mother, say the researchers.
Various metabolic changes take place in a mother’s body during pregnancy. The glucose levels available to the fetus are high and this can cause gestational diabetes in the child, fear the scientists. Even if the mother shows blood sugar levels that cannot be categorized within the diabetes range, the unborn child can still be at a risk of birth defects, says the new study.
According to the statement rendered by Dr. James Priest, a researcher in pediatric cardiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine “Diabetes is the tail end of a spectrum of metabolic abnormalities. We already knew that women with diabetes were at significantly increased risk for having children with congenital heart disease. What we now know, thanks to this new research, is that women who have elevated glucose values during pregnancy that don’t meet our diagnostic criteria for diabetes also face an increased risk.”
About 227 blood samples were collected from pregnant women who were in their second trimester. The pregnant women were split into three groups. 180 had healthy fetuses, 42 showed unborn children with reverse position of heart’s two main arteries or dextrotransposition, and 55 showed anatomical abnormalities in heart like Tetralogy of Fallot . These samples were used to analyze the relation between blood glucose levels and heart defects in the unborn child.
The pregnant women were assessed for their insulin and glucose levels. The women who had fetuses with Tetralogy of Fallot showed higher blood glucose levels than the healthy fetuses and a higher insulin level was noticed in women who had fetuses with dextrotransposition of the main arteries of heart.
A professor of pediatrics at Stanford, Dr Gary Shaw , has confirmed that overt diabetes has shown heart defects as well as “several other kinds of structural birth defects” too. He further stated “This new work will motivate us to ask if underlying associations with moderately increased glucose levels may be similarly implicated in risks of some of these other birth defects.” The study can be read in complete detail in Jama Pediatrics.
