Pregnancy in women with diabetes is associated with increased risk of obstetric complications and neonatal morbidity and mortality. The 1989 St Vincent declaration set out a series of targets for improving quality of life in people with diabetes. For women, the declaration stated as a 5-year goal that the outcome of pregnancy should approximate that of the nondiabetic pregnancy [1]. Since then, a number of large, population-based studies have investigated the impact of the declaration on pregnancy outcomes among women with both pregestational (types 1 and 2) and gestational diabetes. The most recent is the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) [2]. This large survey of the outcomes of pregnancy complicated by both type 1 and type 2 diabetes comprised an extensive descriptive survey of all women with pregestational diabetes who gave birth in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the calendar year from 1 March 2002. The results, along with those from other countries [3][4][5], demonstrate that the objectives of the St Vincent declaration remain unfulfilled. Moreover, it is estimated that up to one in four women with pregestational diabetes have a poor pregnancy outcome [6]. Risks include fetal and neonatal loss, congenital malformations, preterm delivery, macrosomia, pre-eclampsia, Caesarean section and maternal mortality [3,4,[6][7][8][9][10].Many studies assessing the risk of adverse outcomes in diabetic pregnancy have focused on women with type 1 diabetes [3,4,7], but type 2 diabetes is also a growing concern. The number of new cases of type 2 diabetes is increasing and, due to the increasing prevalence of obesity, the disease is now being recognised in adolescents and young adults. Pregnancy outcomes in those with type 2 diabetes are as poor as or worse than those with type 1 diabetes [11,12]. In the CEMACH, type 2 diabetes represented 27.2% of all pregnancies complicated by diabetes. The results of the survey found that rates of perinatal mortality and prevalence of congenital abnormalities are similar between infants of women with type 1 and type 2 diabetes (Table 1) [10,13].Between 2 and 12% of pregnant women develop gestational diabetes [14], which can result in macrosomia, shoulder dystocia, birth injuries and neonatal hypoglycaemia as well as increased perinatal mortality [15]. For the mother, gestational diabetes is a very strong predictor for the development of permanent diabetes later in life.
Fetal and neonatal lossAmong women with diabetes, pregnancy loss remains significantly higher than in the nondiabetic maternity population. A lack of information on the rate of early fetal loss in the general population precludes accurate quantification of the increased risk of this outcome among diabetic Insulin treatment in diabetic pregnancy R E V I E W A R T I C L E DIABETES/METABOLISM RESEARCH AND REVIEWS Diabetes Metab Res Rev 2008; 24(Suppl 2): S3-S20