Mortality and morbidity in offspring of mothers with diabetes compared with a population group: a Danish cohort study with 8-35 years of follow-up.

AIMS: To assess mortality and morbidity in the offspring of mothers with diabetes compared with a control cohort of offspring of mothers without diabetes.

METHODS: The mortality rate, percentage of days admitted to hospital, diagnostic categories and incidence of diabetes mellitus among 691 offspring of mothers with diabetes were compared with a control group of 168 831 offspring not exposed to maternal diabetes. Offspring of mothers with diabetes were identified from the North Jutland Pregnancy database (521 Type 1; 34 Type 2; 136 gestational diabetes) born between 1976 and 2003. Outcome data were retrieved from the National Registry of Patients with follow-up until 31 December 2011. In a subgroup with the longest hospital stay we reviewed hospital records for clinical details until 2016.

RESULTS: Mortality was 1.45% in the diabetes group compared with 1.36% in the control group. In the first 2 years, offspring exposed to diabetes spent significantly more time in hospital than the control offspring, but this difference faded to an insignificant difference of 0.04% of time spent in hospital between age 2 and 8 years. The offspring of mothers with diabetes had a sixfold increased risk of developing diabetes mellitus.

CONCLUSIONS: The offspring of mothers with and without diabetes had almost identical mortality. The increased morbidity was restricted to the first 2 years of life, and was primarily attributable to a few individuals with very severe but probably non-diabetes-related disease burden. The large majority of offspring of mothers with diabetes experienced health conditions similar to those not exposed to diabetes.