Diabetes before pregnancy linked to birth defects

According to recent research in American, women that suffer from diabetes before they become pregnant could be three times as likely as women who give birth without diabetes to have a baby born with one deficiency or more.
The problems were linked to both type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes, the research team stated. Defects in children include cleft palate, ear and penile abnormalities, heart, brain, spine, limb, kidney or gastrointestinal defects.
A medical officer at the CDC, Dr. Adolfo Correa, was reported as commenting: “This study documents the fact that diabetes is associated with a wider range of defects than we had been aware of in the past.” The study investigated almost 20,000 babies, and was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.