The U.S. FDA has approved Novo Nordisk’s Levemir insulin (insulin detemir [rDNA origin] injection) for use by pregnant women with diabetes, giving it a Category B classification, indicating that it does not increase the risk of harm to the unborn baby. The label update makes Levemir the first and only basal insulin analog to have...

New research, funded by Diabetes UK, has found that use of an artificial pancreas by woman suffering from type 1 diabetes during pregnancy may drastically reduce cases of stillbirth and mortality rates. Pregnancy poses additional risks for women with diabetes as hormonal changes make it very difficult to keep blood glucose levels...

Gestational diabetes, or pregnancy-related diabetes, typically occurs around week 24 of pregnancy and is characterized by high blood sugar that results from the body’s impaired use of insulin.  Researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Medical Group in Pasadena found that the risk of having gestational diabetes...

Women who gain weight too quickly during the first three months of pregnancy are more prone to develop gestational diabetes, suggests a new study by researchers from Kaiser Permanente Medical Group in Oakland, California. Reuters reports the researchers compared 345 women who developed gestational diabetes to 800 women who did...

A new international study involving 23,000 women in nine countries suggests that more than twice as many mothers to be as previously thought will develop gestational diabetes.  This finding is based on new measurements for determining dangerous blood sugar levels for the mother and her unborn baby.  Previous guidelines to diagnose...

According to a new study published online in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and reported by EurekAlert, women who gain excessive weight during pregnancy, especially in the first trimester, may increase their risk of developing diabetes later in their pregnancy.  The three-year study of 1,145 pregnant women from an ethnically diverse population...

Breastfeeding her child may lower a woman’s risk of developing Metabolic Syndrome, a condition linked to heart disease and diabetes in women, according to a Kaiser Permanente study that was published online by PR Newswire, and will appear in the February issue of Diabetes. Breastfeeding lowers Metabolic Syndrome risk by 39 to 56...

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is calling for all pregnant women to be tested for gestational diabetes with a one-step oral glucose tolerance test, according to a recent article from MedPage Today. The group says the risk-based approach and two-step diagnosis process recommended by the American Diabetes Association (ADA)...