Infants of Diabetic Moms
at Risk for Heart Defects

Babies born to diabetic mothers are five times more likely than other infants to have heart defects, new research shows.

Although maternal diabetes is known to have harmful effects on the baby's developing heart, the prevalence of heart defects in infants of diabetic mothers has not been determined in a study based on the general population.

Dr. C. Wren, from Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and others evaluated the outcomes of all live births that took place in one UK region between 1995 and 2000. During that period, 609 infants were born to diabetic mothers and 192,009 were born to non-diabetic mothers.

The researchers' findings are reported in the medical journal Heart.

The prevalence of infant heart defects in the diabetic group was 3.6 percent, while the prevalence in the non-diabetic group was less than 1 percent. These figures translate into a fivefold increased risk of defects when maternal diabetes is present.

Certain defects were found in "substantial excess" in the diabetic group, the authors note. Transposition of the great arteries, truncus arteriosus, and tricuspid atresia -- medical terms for three serious defects -- were each at least three times more common among infants of diabetic mothers.

The findings "support existing recommendations that all pregnant women with diabetes should be offered" a special ultrasound of their baby's heart, the investigators state. "This advice is reinforced by published evidence that diagnosis" may improve the outcomes of certain defects.

SOURCE: Heart, October 2003.

Reference Source 89

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