Preexisting Diabetes Mellitus and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

Introduction: Preexisting diabetes increases the risk for unwanted pregnancy outcomes.

Aim: To describe and record the existing knowledge about these unwanted outcomes.

Material and Methods: PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for recent literature.

Results: Preexisting type 1 and type 2 diabetes has been associated with an increased risk for complications, both for mothers and infants. To a great extent, these problems are due to the pathophysiology of a high risk for preterm delivery and macrosomia, with concomitants injury events such as shoulder dystocia with vaginal delivery; this can affect rates caesarean section. Other unwanted outcomes include miscarriage and stillbirth, a higher incidence of respiratory distress, polycythemia, hypoglycemia, and hyperbilirubinemia compared to infants of mothers without diabetes. Finally, postpartum depression is also a possibility for diabetics mothers that just gave birth.

Conclusions: Providing optimal care for diabetic pregnant women can be crucial to minimize many complications, including prematurity, miscarriage, stillbirth, macrosomia and subsequent complications of childbirth. Future research may contribute to understanding the risk factors in terms of how they affect pregnancy and how they interact. The findings can be used to improve disease management through the design of protocols