Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Archives of Disease in Childhood logoLink to Archives of Disease in Childhood
. 1997 Sep;77(3):242–244. doi: 10.1136/adc.77.3.242

High incidence of Down's syndrome in infants of diabetic mothers

H Narchi 1, N Kulaylat 1
PMCID: PMC1717320  PMID: 9370905

Abstract





The incidence of Down's syndrome was studied in 1870 infants of diabetic mothers out of 22 300 neonates born between January 1987 and April 1994 in our institution. All pregnancies were screened for diabetes and all cases of Down's syndrome were confirmed by chromosome analysis.
Down's syndrome (all trisomy 21) was diagnosed in 35 infants: seven were born to mothers with gestational diabetes and 28to non-diabetic mothers. The incidence of Down's syndrome was higher in infants of diabetic mothers (3.75 per 1000 v 1.36 per 1000) (p= 0.02) with a relative risk of 2.75. No significant difference was found in maternal age between both groups (p= 0.67) and the rate of Down's syndrome was higher in infants of diabetic mothers when compared with infants of non-diabetic mothers of similar age.
 Down's syndrome should be added to the congenital malformations already known to occur more frequently in infants of diabetic mothers.



Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (59.0 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Avramopoulos D., Mikkelsen M., Vassilopoulos D., Grigoriadou M., Petersen M. B. Apolipoprotein E allele distribution in parents of Down's syndrome children. Lancet. 1996 Mar 30;347(9005):862–865. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(96)91346-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Becker K. L., Hoffman D. L., Underdahl L. O., Mason H. L. Klinefelter's syndrome. Clinical and laboratory findings in 50 patients. Arch Intern Med. 1966 Oct;118(4):314–321. doi: 10.1001/archinte.118.4.314. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Brook J. D., Gosden R. G., Chandley A. C. Maternal ageing and aneuploid embryos--evidence from the mouse that biological and not chronological age is the important influence. Hum Genet. 1984;66(1):41–45. doi: 10.1007/BF00275184. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Emanuel I., Sever L. E., Milham S., Jr, Thuline H. C. Accelerated ageing in young mothers of children with Down's syndrome. Lancet. 1972 Aug 19;2(7773):361–363. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(72)91741-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. FORBES A. P., ENGEL E. The high incidence of diabetes mellitus in 41 patients with gonadal dysgenesis, and their close relatives. Metabolism. 1963 May;12:428–439. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Klinefelter's syndrome and diabetes mellitus. Lancet. 1966 Oct 1;2(7466):747–748. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. LANDING B. H., PETTIT M. D., WIENS R. L., KNOWLES H., GUEST G. M. Antithyroid antibody and chronic thyroiditis in diabetes. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1963 Jan;23:119–120. doi: 10.1210/jcem-23-1-119. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Lindsten J., Cerasi E., Luft R., Hultquist G. The occurrence of abnormal insulin and growth hormone (HGH) responses to sustained hyperglycaemia in a disease with sex chromosome aberrations (Turner's syndrome). Including a histological study of the pancreas in two such patients. Acta Endocrinol (Copenh) 1967 Sep;56(1):107–131. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Menzinger G., Fallucca F., Andreani D. Gonadal dysgenesis and diabetes. Lancet. 1966 Jun 4;1(7449):1269–1269. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(66)90286-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Milunsky A. Glucose intolerance in the parents of children with Down's syndrome. Am J Ment Defic. 1970 Jan;74(4):475–478. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Milunsky A., Neurath P. W. Diabetes mellitus in Down's Syndrome. Arch Environ Health. 1968 Sep;17(3):372–376. doi: 10.1080/00039896.1968.10665244. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Navarrete V. N., Torres I. H., Rivera I. R., Shor V. P., Grácia P. M. Maternal carbohydrate disorder and congenital malformations. Diabetes. 1967 Feb;16(2):127–130. doi: 10.2337/diab.16.2.127. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Nielsen J. Diabetes mellitus in patients with aneuploid chromosome aberrations and in their parents. Humangenetik. 1972;16(1):165–170. doi: 10.1007/BF00394004. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Nielsen J., Johansen K., Yde H. The frequency of diabetes mellitus in patients with Turner's syndrome and pure gonadal dysgenesis. Blood glucose, plasma insulin and growth hormone level during an oral glucose tolerance test. Acta Endocrinol (Copenh) 1969 Oct;62(2):251–269. doi: 10.1530/acta.0.0620251. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Schupf N., Kapell D., Lee J. H., Ottman R., Mayeux R. Increased risk of Alzheimer's disease in mothers of adults with Down's syndrome. Lancet. 1994 Aug 6;344(8919):353–356. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(94)91398-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Archives of Disease in Childhood are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES