Pregnancy Signs & Symptoms, Week by Week Pregnancy Guide

Instead of being a happy time filled with hope and anticipation, pregnancy can also be a time of great risk to both mother and child, requiring care and monitoring.  According to the latest studies, women who have low adiponectin levels before their pregnancy have high chances of developing gestational diabetes. The main job of adiponectin is to offer protection against inflammation, insulin resistance, and heart disease.

The Study

During the study, the researchers identified 4,000 women who voluntarily gave blood between 1985 and 1996 and who later gave birth. 256 of these women were affected by gestational diabetes during their pregnancy.

According to the findings, the women with normal weight and low adiponectin levels were 3.5 times more likely to develop gestational diabetes than their counterparts with normal adiponectin levels.

Additional Information

The study also suggests that overweight women with low adiponectin levels were 1.7 times more likely to be affected by gestational diabetes. All these suggest that it is possible for women to have pregnancy interventions even before they get pregnant. It is easy to measure the adiponectin levels and thus specialists can assess the risk of a patient developing gestational diabetes.

Connections

The link between the adiponectin levels and gestational diabetes is obvious especially in case of women with a higher BMI. We also have to add that the researchers adjusted for family history of diabetes, smoking, race, and insulin and blood sugar levels. The truth is that the results might be affected by the fact that the women who participated in the study were health conscious. However, the sample was quite diversified in terms of education level and race-ethnicity.

Gestational Diabetes

This is also known as insulin resistance during pregnancy and it is a common condition which may lead to adverse outcomes. The affected women could have larger than usual babies and they could have some complications during delivery as well.It is a known fact regarding gestational diabetes that the affected women are seven times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in their life. In the same time, their children will be more likely to become obese and they also have increased chances of developing diabetes at some point.

The need for studies regarding adiponectin is obvious and the results may determine the way gestational diabetes is handled by specialists. If a doctor knows in advance that a patient has high chances of developing it, he might monitor her more closely.