Offspring of Mothers with Gestational Diabetes: A 5-Year Follow-Up - European Medical Journal

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Offspring of Mothers with Gestational Diabetes: A 5-Year Follow-Up

2 Mins
Diabetes
Authors:
*Vendula Bartáková,1 Beata Baratova,1 Katarina Chalasova,1 Petr Janku,2 Katerina Kankova1

1. Department of Pathophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University Hospital Brno, Czech Republic
*Correspondence to [email protected]

Disclosure:

The authors report grants from the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic during the conduct of the study.

Acknowledgements:

The authors would like to thank Dr Jana Belobradkova for her co-operation in the recruitment of patients with diabetes. The study was supported by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic (Grant number: NV18-01-00046).

Citation:
EMJ Diabet. ;8[1]:44-46. Abstract Review No: AR5.
Keywords:
Gestational diabetes mellitus, obesity, offspring, pregnancy, prospective study.

Each article is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Females with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are at an increased risk of complication during delivery (adverse perinatal outcomes) and having abnormalities in glucose metabolism postpartum. They are also seven times more likely to develop prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes mellitus.1,2 At the same time, GDM represents a risk for the offspring as children of mothers with GDM are more prone to develop childhood obesity, cardiovascular diseases, or Type 2 diabetes mellitus.3

The aims of this study were to ascertain possible anthropometric and psychomotor development abnormalities and/or morbidity in the offspring of GDM mothers versus controls in a 5-year follow-up; and to describe the consequences of perinatal morbidity (adverse perinatal outcomes) with childhood morbidity or psychomotor development in a cohort of offspring of GDM mothers versus controls. The secondary aim was to investigate whether the mother’s obesity plays a role in the development of the offspring independent of GDM.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The baseline study population comprised a total of 432 participants. Of those, 68 had a physiological pregnancy without GDM and 364 had GDM, previously described in another study.4 All follow-up participants were contacted electronically through a questionnaire designed according to the ‘child health card’, which is available to all children in the Czech Republic healthcare system. The evaluated parameters can be seen in Table 1. A subset of n=89 (20.6% of females at baseline; 26 with GDM and 63 controls) participated in the prospective study.

Table 1: Offspring data.
Data expressed as median interquartile range, Mann-Whitney test or frequency (%), and Chi-square test. Bold number indicate statistically significant results.
*evaluated at 12 months of age.
†evaluated at 18 months of age.
‡evaluated at 3 years of age.
§evaluated at 5 years of age.
GDM: gestational diabetes mellitus; NS: nonsignificant.

RESULTS

Mothers with GDM in the second trimester of pregnancy had a significantly higher BMI (p=0.019, Mann-Whitney test); obesity was also higher in the GDM group, but this was not statistically significant. Those with GDM also smoked actively or were former smokers (p=0.012, Chi-square test). Offspring in the control group were breast-fed for longer periods (12 months; interquartile range: 8–17) compared those in the GDM group (6 months; interquartile range: 3–22), but the difference was not statistically significant.

Perinatal parameters of both groups (GDM versus controls) were comparable. Adverse perinatal outcomes (macrosomia, length of delivery, and necessity of instrumental delivery) had no significant influence on the psychomotor development or morbidity of the offspring ≤5 years, in both groups.

Offspring data were compared at 3 years and 5 years. At the age of 12 and 18 months, offspring of GDM mothers had significantly worse speech abilities: they did not say any words at 12 months of age and did not link words at 18 months of age (p=0.015 and p=0.009, respectively, Chi-square test). The speech abilities at the age of 5 years were better in the control group, but the difference was not statistically significant. The Psychomotor Development Screening Test and School Readiness Test (SRT) were borderline worse in the GDM group at 5 years of age (p=0.048 for both, Chi-square test). Offspring of GDM mothers were ill more in their first 5 years of life and required hospitalisation (p=0.022, Chi-square test), with upper respiratory tract illnesses and allergies arising most frequently (Table 1).

CONCLUSION

The authors presented a unique prospective study focussing on the children of mothers with GDM ≤5 years of age and found several differences in selected parameters in the offspring, primarily in their speech abilities and total morbidity. Moreover, a significant link to the mother’s obesity and the offspring’s increased adiposity was noted, independent of GDM.

References
Bellamy L et al. Type 2 diabetes mellitus after gestational diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet. 2009;373(9677):1773-9. Kim C et al. Gestational diabetes and the incidence of Type 2 diabetes: a systematic review. Diabetes Care. 2002;25(10):1862-8. Metzger BE et al. International Association of Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Groups recommendations on the diagnosis and classification of hyperglycemia in pregnancy. Diabetes Care. 2010;33(3):676-82. Bartáková V et al. [Pregnancy outcomes in women with gestational diabetes: specific subgroups might require increased attention]. Ceska Gynekol. 2017;82(1):16-23. (In Czech).

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