Diabetic women ‘have more C-sections and fetal complications’

WASHINGTON - A study has revealed that nearly half of women with diabetes prior to pregnancy have a potentially-avoidable C-section and their babies are twice as likely to die as those born to women without diabetes.

Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital, the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women’s College Hospital say rates of diabetes in Ontario have doubled in the last 12 years. Nearly one in 10 Ontario adults have been diagnosed with diabetes, including more women than ever before.

The POWER (Project for an Ontario Women’s Health Evidence-Based Report) study, examined the impact of diabetes on Ontarians. Key findings include:

45 per cent of women with pre-gestational diabetes are having C-sections compared with 37 per cent of women with gestational diabetes and 27 percent of women without diabetes.

Babies born to women with pre-pregnancy diabetes have twice as many fetal complications as those born to women without diabetes.

The rate of stillbirth/in-hospital mortality in women with pre-pregnancy diabetes is twice the rate in women with diabetes (5.2 per 1,000 vs 2.5 per 1,000) than women without diabetes.

Rates of major and minor congenital anomalies were 60 per cent higher among women with pre-pregnancy diabetes than women without diabetes.

More than 50 per cent of people who don’t yet have diabetes have risk factors for the disease.

One in four adults aged 65 and older have been diagnosed with diabetes.

The findings are detailed in the report titled Diabetes. (ANI)