ABSTRACT
Diabetes is one of the most prominent medical disorders complicating pregnancy, probably affecting 1 out of 250 pregnant women. Furthermore, diabetes is considered a major risk factor for congenital malformations, stillbirth, and neonatal death—all constituting increased perinatal mortality (PNM). PNM remains the standard measure to evaluate adverse pregnancy outcome. There is a considerable difficulty in estimating PNM due to numerous systems used and substantial differences in definitions of PNM. Early pregnancy loss is an indirect measure related to quality of care before and during early pregnancy. Early pregnancy loss or spontaneous abortion refers to pregnancy loss at less than 20 weeks of gestation in the absence of elective medical or surgical measures to terminate the pregnancy. The altered intrauterine conditions in women with diabetes are probably associated with increase in early pregnancy loss rate. Only few studies investigating gestational diabetes mellitus and pregnancy outcome have included early pregnancy loss as one of the outcome measures examined.
