title: Sex of the baby and future maternal risk of Type 2 diabetes in women who had gestational diabetes.
abstract: Women who develop gestational diabetes mellitus have a chronic defect in the secretion of insulin by the pancreatic β cells that underlies both their diagnostic hyperglycaemia in pregnancy and their elevated lifetime risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in the future. It has recently emerged that carrying a male fetus is associated with poorer maternal β-cell function and an increased risk of gestational diabetes, whereas the development of gestational diabetes when carrying a girl (as compared with a boy) predicts a comparatively higher risk of early progression to Type 2 diabetes before any subsequent pregnancy. In this context, we sought to determine the impact of fetal sex on the long-term risk of Type 2 diabetes in women with gestational diabetes.
  
  
  
  Using population-based administrative databases, we identified all women in Ontario, Canada, with a singleton live-birth first pregnancy complicated by gestational diabetes between April 2000 and March 2010 (n = 23 363). We compared the risk of subsequent Type 2 diabetes after pregnancy in those who carried a girl (n = 11 229) vs. those who carried a boy (n = 12 134).
  
  
  
  Over median 5.5 years follow-up, 5483 women (23.5%) were diagnosed with diabetes. Compared with those who carried a boy, women who had a girl had an elevated risk of subsequently developing diabetes (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.06, 95% CI 1.01-1.12).
  
  
  
  Among women with gestational diabetes, those who are carrying a girl have a slightly higher overall future risk of Type 2 diabetes.
authors.affiliation: Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada.|Leadership Sinai Centre for Diabetes, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada.|Division of Endocrinology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Retnakaran
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.|Department of Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Canada.|Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, Canada.|Institute for Health Policy Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: B R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Shah
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000378:metabolism; D016640:Diabetes, Gestational / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D050417:Insulin-Secreting Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D009864:Ontario / Q000453:epidemiology; D011247:Pregnancy; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors