FETAL AND NEONATAL MORTALITY IN PREGNANCIES COMPLICATED BY DIABETES MELLITUS

Abstract

About 30 per cent of all the pregnancies complicated by diabetes mellitus result in the death of the fetus or the newborn infant. The cause of this high mortality has remained obscure. No significant reduction in fetal deaths has been shown to have occurred since insulin has come into use. Several factors have been held responsible for the high death rate. These include the degree of care with which the maternal diabetes has been regulated, the presence of such complications of pregnancy as toxemia and hydramnios, the frequent occurrence of large fetuses, the increased incidence of congenital anomalies and the hypoglycemia in the liveborn infant. There is no general agreement, however, that any one or that all of these factors together can explain satisfactorily the fetal mortality.¹ A recent study by Miller and Wilson²has brought out the fact that infants born of diabetic mothers may have cardiac