A study, published in Nature Medicine, found that high glucose levels make embryonic cells kill themselves even before implantion into the womb. This loss of cells could help explain the higher rates of miscarriage and malformed babies among diabetic women.
Diabetic women have up to eight times as many malformed babies as other women.
Even if their blood sugar levels are under control by the time a baby's organs form, malformation rates are still two to three times higher than normal. But by that time, the damage may be done. So it's very important for them to tell their doctor they want to get pregnant so they can be monitored very closely from that point on. Dr Moley, a reproductive endocrinologist at Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, said significant cell death would cause a miscarriage, and malformations would result from the death of just a few cells. The US National Institutes of Health does not permit human embryo research, so Dr Moley tested her idea on mice, whose development has much in common with that of humans.