Often the result of delayed care or neglect of the diabetes, those tragic things can catch a mother in the midst of a high-risk pregnancy from both sides from both the diabetes and childbirth. Uncontrolled diabetes allows an excess of unmetabolized glucose to remain in the mother s blood, which flows to her baby. The baby s insulin helps the fetus metabolize glucose and stores it as fat, increasing the baby s birth weight often beyond nine pounds. Unchecked diabetes can also result in fetal cardiac defects, central nervous system malformations, skeletal and genitourinary abnormalities, Queen-an said. Insulin is one of the best growth factors, Queenan said, and when a baby gets too big, it runs the risk of outgrowing its blood supply in utero.
Large infants can experience birth trauma during delivery.
The mother too is in danger. But with good care, we can expect good outcomes, Queenan said. All people with diabetes male, female, pregnant or not need to maintain as tight a control on their blood sugar as possible, Colwell said. And tight control is something Stephenson takes in stride. She carries with her an insulin auto-injector that allows her to dial up a precise amount of insulin.