Sex of the baby influences the risk of diabetes of the mother

• April 27, 2024

The sex of a baby seems to affect the risk of gestational diabetes of a mother, and of type 2 diabetes after pregnancy, a new study suggests.

Women pregnant with a baby male were more likely to contract gestational diabetes , the researchers said.

It is thought that the gestational diabetes occurs due to a combination of metabolic abnormalities underlying factors in the mother and temporary metabolic changes that take place during pregnancy, indicates Baiju Shah , of the University of Toronto .

Our findings suggest that the presence of a fetus Male sex leads to more metabolic changes associated with pregnancy than a female fetus, "adds Shah.

But the women who contracted gestational diabetes while they were pregnant with a daughter they had a higher risk of getting type 2 diabetes after pregnancy.

The researchers said that this suggests that these women had more serious underlying health problems that increased their susceptibility to gestational diabetes and later to the type 2 diabetes .

Public health programs often focus on how the health, behavior and psychology of a pregnant mother can have consequences for her baby's health. However, this study suggests that the baby can help us better understand the mother's health, and can help us predict the risks of future illness, "says Shah.

The researchers reviewed data on nearly 643,000 women in Canada. The women had their first child between 2000 and 2010.

The study was published on May 20 in the magazine Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism . Although he discovered an association between a baby's sex and a mother's risk of contracting diabetes , the study was not designed to show that there was causality.

Up to 9% of pregnant women get gestational diabetes , according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). UU

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