ABSTRACT
Elevated blood glucose or hyperglycemia is the main clinical characteristic of all types of diabetes mellitus (DM). If a pregnant woman has diabetes, her fetus is exposed to intrauterine hyperglycemia as glucose is an essential nutrient and transfers freely across the placental barrier. This earliest environmental exposure to maternal hyperglycemia in utero affects the individual adversely in both short- and long-time life span. Various clinical parameters related to obesity, glucose metabolism, cardiovascular profile, and cognitive function have been investigated so far and the field expanded over the years to include gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) as well as type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). This chapter provides an overview of the present knowledge on long-term metabolic consequences for offspring from pregnancies complicated by either T1DM or GDM with a focus on literature from this century. The evolving concept of epigenetics provides a conceptual framework of how exposures are transformed into altered phenotype.
