Developing Diabetes During Pregnancy Increases Baby’s Risk for Autism
Developing Diabetes During Pregnancy Increases Baby’s Risk for Autism – According to a new study, gestational diabetes, diabetes developed halfway during pregnancy can put babies at a higher risk for autism.
Some pregnant women tend to develop diabetes during the pregnancy, and can usually be managed with diet and exercise, and after delivery the diabetes usually disappears.
The lead author Anny H. Xiang of Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena, says that the study does not indicate and causal association between gestational diabetes and autism, but the fact that it is this type of diabetes and not preexisting diabetes that poses a risk for autism is significant.
Xiang and her team analyzed data on 322,000 children born in Kaiser Permanente Southern California hospitals between 1995 and 2009. Two percent of the children were exposed to preexisting type 2 diabetes in their mothers, while nearly 8% to gestational diabetes. Fifty percent of women with preexisting diabetes, and a quarter of those with gestational diabetes took diabetic medications during pregnancy.
Researchers found that almost 3,400 of the children developed autism spectrunm disorder (ASD). After accounting for factors such as family history of ASD, smoking, height, and weight gain during pregnancy, researchers found that kids born to women who developed gestational diabetes before 6 1/2 months of pregnancy, were at a greater risk (42%) for autism than those of women who did not have diabetes. The authors say that the pregnant mothers probably had undetected high blood sugar levels early on, which may have affected the early and critical brain development in the babies.
What causes gestational diabetes? Experts says maternal age, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and polycystic ovary syndrome, can all be risk factor for gestational diabetes. Xiang says checking blood glucose levels early in the pregnancy is a good practice.
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