Pregnant women with higher-than-normal blood sugar are more
likely than others to have a very large baby, a new study shows. Oversized
babies can be difficult to deliver, sometimes need to be delivered ahead of
schedule and can cause injury to mother or newborn during birth.
Very high blood sugar during pregnancy constitutes
gestational diabetes, a condition that occurs in 3 to 7 percent of pregnancies,
says study coauthor Donald Coustan, an obstetric gynecologist at BrownUniversityMedicalSchool
in Providence, R.I.
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