This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Maternal diabetes does not increase offspring’s risk for death

Children born very preterm and had very low birth weights to mothers with diabetes were not at increased risk for death compared with those born to mothers without diabetes, according to findings recently presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting.

Researchers compared the risks for in-hospital mortality and severe neonatal morbidities of 76,360 infants from the International Neonatal Network for Evaluating Outcomes database born between 24 and 31 weeks of pregnancy that weighed 1,500 grams or less at birth. Their mother’s diabetes status was also recorded.

“Maternal diabetes is associated with very preterm birth. Infants born very preterm face increased risks of death and severe morbidity. It is unclear if maternal diabetes impacts neonatal outcome of very preterm infants,” Martina Persson, MD, PhD, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues wrote.

Researchers found that mortality rates were lower in offspring of mothers with diabetes than offspring of mothers without diabetes (6.6% vs. 8.3%), as was the composite of mortality and severe morbidity (31.6% vs. 40.6%).

In analyses adjusted for antenatal corticosteroids use, BW z-score, gestational age, infant sex, maternal hypertensive disease in pregnancy, mothers older than 35 years, and network enrollment, there were no significant differences in ORs for neonatal mortality (adjusted OR = 1.16; 95% CI, 0.97-1.39) or composite of mortality and severe morbidity (aOR = 0.99; 95% CI, 0.88-1.1) between the groups, according to researchers. – by Janel Miller

References: Persson M, et al. Gestational diabetes predicts cardiometabolic markers in offspring twenty years later. Presented at: Pediatric Academic Societies meeting; May 5-8, 2018; Toronto.

Disclosure: Healio Family Medicine was unable to determine the authors’ relevant financial disclosures prior to publication.