ABSTRACT
Maternal hyperglycemia has been implicated as the major cause of neonatal macro-somia,
yet clinicians frequently report the birth of large-for-gestational-age infants in
normoglycemic pregnancies. We examined the relationship between birthweight, maternal
blood glucose (BG), glycosylated hemoglobin (GHb) levels, litter size, maternal age,
gestational duration, and parity using the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse model. We
observed 133 litters and analyzed the birthweight in relation to BG, GHb, litter size,
maternal age, gestational duration, and parity. We found that mean litter birthweight
was significantly negatively correlated with the total number of pups in each litter
(r = -0.39; P <0.01) and significantly positively correlated with parity (r = 0.19; P <0.05) and maternal age (r = 0.22; P <0.05). The total number of pups was significantly negatively correlated with parity
(r = -0.33; P <0.01) and with parentage (r = -0.21; P <0.05). The relationship between birthweight and GHb was bimodal. No relationship
was found with a GHb less than 2.5%, a significant positive correlation was found
for GHb between 2.6% and 4.0% (r = 0.67; P <0.01), and a negative relationship was found when GHb was above 4.0%. Thus, increased
parity, maternal age and glucose are associated with increased birthweight. Mild hyperglycemia
plays the major role when age, maternal size, gestational duration, and parity are
controlled.
