Diabetes may not be kind to your baby, can result in birth defects: Study - Times Now

About 300,000 to 400,000 fetuses per year from mothers with diabetes develop neural tube defects -- when the tissue that eventually forms the brain and spinal cord fails to form properly -- which can lead to miscarriage or profound disability.

Using studies in mice, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers have identified the mechanism behind these structural birth defects, which they say is due to the neural tissue ageing prematurely, halting its growth before it has made enough cells to finish forming the neural tube.

"For many decades, our hypothesis was that premature ageing, known as senescence, was occurring in the fetuses of mothers with diabetes, and was, in part, inducing these birth defects.

In the study, the researchers were able to delay the ageing process in the tissue by using a cancer drug, allowing the neural tube to fully form in mouse pups born from mice with mutations mimicking diabetes.

Their findings suggested that more specialised therapies could be developed to prevent miscarriages or birth defects in babies born from mothers with diabetes.First, the research team showed that the neural tube tissue in 8-day old mouse pups from mothers with diabetes contained markers of premature ageing.