Being pregnant with a boy would increase the risk of developing gestational diabetes, while expecting a girl would increase the risk of type 2 diabetes after pregnancy.
The sex of the fetus would increase the risk of the mother developing gestational diabetes or type 2 diabetes after pregnancy, reveals study Canadian published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
According to this publication, women pregnant with boys are more likely to develop diabetes during their pregnancy than women expecting girls. However, women who are pregnant with a girl who had diabetes during pregnancy have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes afterwards.
An unknown factor
To highlight this association, researchers from the University of Toronto (Canada) analyzed all cases of diabetes among 643,000 women who gave birth between April 2000 and March 2010. They did not take multiple pregnancies into account.
Thanks to these data and to a follow-up of more than 3 years, they were also able to determine the effect of the sex of the first child on the following pregnancies. Thus, for women who gave birth to a girl during a first pregnancy and who did not develop gestational diabetes, having a boy predicts an increased risk of gestational diabetes.
“This large study suggests that the baby can help us better understand the health of the mother, and help us predict the risks of diseases that may arise,” concludes Baiju Shah, one of the study’s authors.
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