Diabetes in pregnancy threatens infant language delay

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Infants that are born to mothers with pregnancy-related diabetes run twice the risk of language development problems, according to a research team of University of Laval's School of Psychology.

Scientists compared the vocabulary and grammar skills of 221 children whose mothers were diagnosed with gestational diabetes to those from a control group. These tests were conducted at different intervals between ages 18 months and 7 years.

The pregnancy diabetes study results showed that children born to mothers with gestational diabetes achieve poorer scores on tests of spoken vocabulary and grammar than children of healthy mothers. The differences between the two groups are probably due to the effects of gestational diabetes on the brain development of babies. The study shows that these effects persist even after the children start school.

As mothers are having their children at a later age and the incidence of obesity in the population is on the rise, the rate of gestational diabetes is clearly increasing. The risk to babies' language development needs to be taken into account.

Source: АМИ-ТАСС