Morbidity and psychomotor development of offspring of women with gestational diabetes: a 5-year follow-up.

BACKGROUND: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) represents a risk factor for both mother and her offspring in a short-term (perinatal morbidity) and long-term horizon (postpartum diabetes or foetal programming). Several studies focused at peri/postnatal outcomes of GDM mother´s offspring, however relatively few (and none in Czech population) were designed as prospective. The aim of the study was to ascertain eventual anthropometric and developmental abnormalities and/or morbidity in offspring of GDM mothers compare to controls in a 5-year follow-up using a parent-reported parameters related to psychomotor development and common paediatric morbidities including a sub-study of offspring of GDM mothers experiencing adverse perinatal outcomes. METHODS: A 5 year follow up study of offspring of GDM mothers (n = 26) vs those with a normal pregnancy (n = 63). An electronic questionnaire was used to obtain the parameters (such as growth, psychomotor development, vaccination, morbidity history etc.) available to parents from the parent-held infant health record. Data on pregnancy and delivery were available from the previous study. RESULTS: Offspring of GDM mothers had delayed psychomotor development in early childhood, but in 5 years of age they seemed to gradually achieve results of a control group. Children with macrosomia had a higher percentile of weight-for-height and were significantly more frequently ill than those with a normal birth weight. Offspring of obese mothers had worse verbal language skills in early childhood and a higher percentile of weight-for-height. CONCLUSION: Maternal gestational diabetes and obesity can be considered an important determinant of postnatal offspring development and health status, which further advocates for broader implementation of preventive strategies.

Development of a New Risk Score for Stratification of Women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus at High Risk of Persisting Postpartum Glucose Intolerance Using Routinely Assessed Parameters.

The aims of the study were (i) to find predictive factors for early postpartum conversion of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) into persisting glucose intolerance (PGI), (ii) to evaluate potential differences in adverse perinatal outcomes in GDM women with and without early postpartum PGI and, finally, (iii) to establish a risk score to predict postpartum PGI. A cross-sectional study comprised 244 GDM patients with known age, parity, positive family history of diabetes, pre-gestational BMI, comorbidities, smoking history, results of mid-trimester oral glucose tolerance test, HbA1c, obstetric complications, neonatal outcomes and mode of delivery. A risk score was calculated using parameters with highest odds ratios in a statistic scoring model. Significant differences between women with and without PGI postpartum were ascertained for mid-trimester fasting plasma glucose (p < 0.001), HbA1c above 42 mmol/mol (p = 0.035), prevalence of obesity (p = 0.007), hypothyroidism, family history of diabetes and smoking. We also observed higher incidence of prolonged and complicated delivery in PGI group (p = 0.04 and 0.007, respectively). In conclusion, this study identified several parameters with predictive potential for early PGI and also adverse peripartal outcomes. We established a simple risk-stratification score for PGI prediction applicable for GDM affected women prior their leaving maternity ward. Yet, given a relatively small sample size as a main limitation of this study, the proposed score should be validated in the larger cohort.