Moms’ diabetes, obese kids linked

Treating pregnant women for diabetes can help lower the chances their children will be obese, researchers found.

Untreated gestational diabetes raises a woman’s blood sugar during pregnancy and almost doubles the child’s risk of becoming obese by ages 5 to 7. Researchers examined the records of 9,439 mother-child pairs in Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. The women gave birth between 1995 and 2000.

Children of mothers with high blood sugar who weren’t treated during pregnancy were 89% more likely to be overweight and 82% more likely to be obese by age 5 to 7, compared with mothers who had normal blood sugar levels, according to the study in the journal Diabetes Care.