Diabetes and pregnancy

For pregnant women with diabetes, some particular challenges exist for both mother and child. If the pregnant woman has diabetes as a pre-existing disorder, it can cause early labor, birth defects, and larger than average infants. Therefore, experts advise diabetics to maintain blood sugar level close to normal range about 3 months before planning for pregnancy. When type 1 diabetes mellitus or type 2 diabetes mellitus is pre-existing, planning in advance is emphasized if one wants to become pregnant, and stringent blood glucose control is needed before getting pregnant. Pre-gestational diabetes can be classified as Type 1 or Type 2 depending on the physiological mechanism. Type 1 diabetes mellitus is an autoimmune disorder leading to destruction of insulin-producing cell in the pancreas; type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with obesity and results from a combination of insulin resistance and insufficient insulin production. Upon becoming pregnant, the placenta produces human placental lactogen (HPL), a hormone with counter-regulatory actions leading to increased blood glucose levels. In combination with pre-existing diabetes, these maternal physiological changes can lead to dangerously high blood glucose levels. This is significant because the consequences of poor glycemic control are more severe during pregnancy compared to non-pregnant states. The negative effects of pregestational diabetes are due to high blood sugar and insulin levels primarily during the first trimester of pregnancy (in contrast to gestational diabetes, which can lead to fetal complications during the second and third trimester). Since this period is when many of the major internal structures and organs of the fetus is decided, pre-existing diabetes can lead to congenital abnormalities. These include abnormal development of the heart and the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Strong correlations have been reported between diabetes and sacral agenesis, holoprosencephaly, and longitudinal limb deficiency.