Gestational Diabetes, Child Obesity Linked

Aug 29, 12:37 PM

Current Headlines: Treating pregnant women for diabetes during pregnancy can break the link between gestational diabetes and childhood obesity, a U.S. study found.

The study, published in Diabetes Care, shows that the risk of childhood obesity rises as a pregnant woman's blood sugar level rises, and that untreated gestational diabetes nearly doubles a child's risk of becoming obese by age 5 to 7. The study also shows for the first time that by treating women with gestational diabetes, the child's risk of becoming obese is significantly reduced.

In fact, children whose mothers were treated for gestational diabetes had the same risk for becoming obese as children whose mothers had normal blood sugar levels.

Researchers at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Oregon and Hawaii used the organization's integrated databases to analyze medical records of 9,439 mother-child pairs. The subjects were members of the health plan in Oregon, Washington and Hawaii who gave birth between 1995 and 2000.

Gestational diabetes, the condition in which pregnancy triggers insulin resistance and raises the woman's blood glucose level, affects up to 8 percent of U.S. pregnant women each year.