ANTHROPOMETRIC FEATURES IN INFANTS OF MOTHERS WITH GESTATIONAL DIABETES - RELATIONSHIP WITH TREATMENT MODALITIES

We compared the effects of two treatment strategies (diet alone versus a combination of insulin and diet) on neonatal anthropometric measure ments and the outcome of a full-term white infant sample born to mothe rs with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Study subjects included 2 17 consecutive nonrandomized women with GDM with term singleton pregna ncies. Insulin therapy was administered on the basis of anamnestic and maternal-fetal criteria. One hundred and twenty-one patients (group 1 ) received a combination of insulin and diet, and 96 (group 2) underwe nt diet alone. All 1,052 white patients with term singleton pregnancie s without GDM, screened at the same time as the study group, formed th e control group. The incidence of large-for-gestational-age (LGA) infa nts was significantly higher in group 2 (18.8%) compared with group 1 (9.9%) and the control group (8.3%). Male and female infants born to d iabetic mothers of group 2 had significantly greater mean birth weight s, ponderal indices, thoracic circumferences, weight/length ratios and significantly smaller mean cranial/thoracic circumference ratios than male and female infants in group 1 and the control group (p < 0.05, S cheffe test). Treatment of GDM mothers with insulin and diet has been shown to be able not only to normalize the incidence of LGA infants bu t also to influence the anthropometric characteristics of the infants born to these mothers to such an extent that they showed no significan t differences compared to infants born to non-diabetic mothers.