How diabetes can affect pregnancy, and pregnancy can affect diabetes

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
How diabetes can affect pregnancy]

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[Text on screen: Elizabeth Buschur, MD
Endocrinologist
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Elizabeth Buschur, MD:
Preexisting diabetes definitely can affect pregnancy and vice versa, pregnancy can definitely affect preexisting diabetes. 

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So it is really important to have excellent glucose control before trying to conceive, if not in the first trimester, during organogenesis. So when baby's developing and forming, really important to try to have your glucoses as close to normal as possible. And pregnancy itself affects diabetes and your insulin needs.

In pregnancy, diabetes can cause several complications. It can cause difficulty getting pregnant or conceiving. It can cause an increase in miscarriage or baby's development, including congenital abnormalities. It can also cause trouble during the pregnancy in terms of baby's development and growth. If there is a lot of high blood sugars or hyperglycemia, the baby can get too much glucose or fuel and grow larger than they should be necessarily. And that can cause complications with delivery or even early deliveries at times.

On the other hand, for a mom with diabetes, pregnancy can be associated much more frequently with problems with blood pressure. We call that gestational hypertension or preeclampsia, which is much more common in women with diabetes than those without. 

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When babies grow larger or are predicted to be large for gestational age, sometimes it is more frequent to have cesarean sections for delivery rather than natural or vaginal deliveries.

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
For more information, visit: go.osu.edu/diabetes-pregnancy]

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