Maternal Diabetes and Congenital Heart Disease
One of the most common birth defects- Congenital heart disease (CHD) remains the leading cause of non-infectious death in infants. The reasons can be genetic and/or non-genetic factors, environmental factors.
The recent studies reflect ‘maternal hyperglycemia or maternal diabetes’ as one of the gene-environmental precursors on fetal heart development. The studies show a strong correlation between maternal diabetes and increased cardiac risk in babies.
Few of the findings regarding Congenital heart disease (CHD) are:
- Maternal diabetes before conception affects the heart, great vessels and neural tube of the fetus.
- Cardiomyopathy and increased risk of mortality in a fetus are associated with maternal diabetes developed in the latter half of pregnancy.
- The highest risk of left ventricular outflow tract obstructive malformations is observed in babies born to mothers with type 2 diabetes.
- Babies born with atrioventricular septal defects are highly correlated with type 1 maternal diabetes.