Feb. 26 (UPI) – Children born to mothers with type 1 or type 2 diabetes are up to 10% higher in body weight by the age of 10 than children whose mothers did not have the disease. This was the result of a study published on Friday by the journal Pediatric Obesity.
That weight difference means they are more likely to meet the criteria for obesity than children born to mothers who did not have diabetes during pregnancy, the researchers said.
By the age of 10, children of diabetic mothers had a body mass index (BMI) of nearly 23, the data showed. The mean child BMI for both mothers and those who did not have diabetes during pregnancy was just over 20.
The BMI is a measure of a person’s weight and height. Currently, a BMI of 22 children under the age of 10 would place them in the 95th percentile nationwide, meaning they would be considered obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We push mothers too [diabetes] during pregnancy to carefully monitor her blood sugar levels and work with clinical professionals to bring her blood sugar into normal ranges, “study co-author Anny Xiang told UPI.
“Abnormal blood sugar during pregnancy is not ideal for the fetus and can lead to long-term health problems,” said Xiang, director of biostatistical research at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California in Los Angeles.
Nearly 20% of all children nationwide meet obesity criteria, which puts them at greater risk for health problems such as heart disease and diabetes as they age, according to the CDC.
Children who are obese stay the same as they age, as Xiang and her colleagues said.
For this study, Kaiser Permanente researchers reviewed data on more than 218,000 children born in healthcare facilities between 2008 and 2015 and compared trends in BMI over the first 10 years of life.
More than 500 of the mothers in the study had type 1 diabetes, which means their bodies can’t produce insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas that helps the body process sugar.
Nearly 8,000 of the mothers had type 2 diabetes, which is usually diagnosed in adulthood and indicates that their bodies are not responding well to insulin, which can lead to dangerously high blood sugar levels.
Up to 20,000 women have had gestational diabetes, a form of high blood sugar that occurs during pregnancy.
Children born to mothers with some form of diabetes had roughly the same average BMI as children born to mothers who did not have the disease during pregnancy.
However, by the age of 3 years, children born to diabetic mothers had a higher BMI. By the age of 10, the average BMI of children born to mothers with some form of diabetes was up to 10% higher than that of women without the disease, the researchers said.
The reasons for the relationship between maternal diabetes and childhood obesity remain unclear, although it has been attributed to “fetal programming,” according to Xiang.
High blood sugar during pregnancy could cause the fetus to develop elevated levels of insulin, she said, as did genetics.
“There are many studies showing that in mothers with diabetes, whether type 1 or type 2 diabetes during pregnancy, their children are at increased risk of obesity,” Xiang said.
“Mothers can help reduce the risk of obesity in their children by making sure their children have healthy eating and physical activity. Mothers can be role models for their children,” she said.
