Gestational diabetes is a complication suffered by one in ten pregnant women. It is caused by the inability to correctly regulate sugar levels due to the action of hormones, and usually disappears after delivery. But the disease cycle continues its progress.
A recent study published in the journal Diabetology has found that Children born to mothers with gestational diabetes have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adolescence.
We knew the relationship between gestational diabetes and a greater predisposition to obesity in children, but now the relationship goes further suggesting that it also predisposes to develop the disease.
The researchers followed 255 obese adolescents for three years, of which one in five had been exposed to gestational diabetes in the womb.
At the beginning of the study the tests showed that all adolescents had normal glucose tolerance. But three years later, teenagers born to mothers with gestational diabetes had six times more likely to have progressed to prediabetes or diabetes than those born to mothers who had not suffered it.
It is believed that gestational diabetes produces epigenetic changes in the womb that alters the function of the baby's beta cells, which produce insulin in the pancreas.
In light of the study, it is necessary to maximize prenatal controls and keep weight gain at bay to prevent gestational diabetes in the mother and in the future baby.
