Pregnant women's blood sugar rate linked to baby's heart defect risk: Study

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Tuesday 13 Oct 2015 - 13:16 Makkah mean time-30-12-1436 Stanford, (IINA) - Researchers from Stanford University recently conducted a study where they found that pregnant women with elevated blood sugar levels have an increased risk of giving birth to babies with congenital heart defects, UPI reported. According to the study, metabolic changes in a woman's body during pregnancy make glucose more available to the fetus than the mother, which can result in the development of gestational diabetes. Even if the mother is not considered diabetic, high sugar levels still increase the risk defect. A researcher at Stanford University said: "We already knew that women with diabetes were at significantly increased risk for having children with congenital heart disease. What we now know, thanks to this new research, is that women who have elevated glucose values during pregnancy that don't meet our diagnostic criteria for diabetes also face an increased risk". Researchers analyzed blood samples taken from 277 women during their second trimester of pregnancy to compare the relationship between blood glucose and congenital heart defect prevalence in their fetuses. The women in the study were divided into three groups: 180 of them had normal and healthy fetuses , 55 had tetralogy of Fallot, characterized by structural issues in the heart and blood vessels and 42 had dextrotransposition of the great arteries, which is a reversal of positions of the two main arteries leading from the heart, preventing oxygenated blood from the lungs from circulating to the body. The women's blood was analyzed for levels of glucose and insulin, revealing that women whose fetuses had tetralogy of Fallot had higher glucose levels than those whose fetuses were healthy. In fetuses with dextrotransposition of the great arteries, their mothers had higher levels of insulin, but not of blood glucose. AG/IINA