Maternal Diabetes and Risk of Epilepsy in Offspring

A recent study examined the association among diabetes subtypes and epilepsy in offspring. Evidence on the association between maternal diabetes and neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring, particularly epilepsy, remains limited. Moreover, most studies have not distinguished among diabetes subtypes—type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes mellitus—which each have distinct origins.

Researchers studied all in-hospital live births between 2002 and 2018 in Ontario, Canada and linked them with population maternal and child health records up until March 2020.

Researchers found 7.6% of children were exposed to maternal diabetes, with type 1 having the lowest occurrence of the three subtypes and gestational diabetes mellitus with the highest occurrence. Over a median follow-up of 10.2 years, 17,853 epilepsy cases were diagnosed. After adjusting for maternal socioeconomic and clinical characteristics, children exposed to maternal diabetes had an increased risk of epilepsy in all subcategories of diabetes compared with those unexposed.  A longer duration of type 1 and type 2 was associated with an increased risk.

Researchers concluded that maternal diabetes, particularly type 1 and type 2, is associated with an increased epilepsy risk in offspring. The findings suggest that prenatal metabolic and inflammatory exposures may contribute to the development of epilepsy, which could inform future research directions.

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