INTRODUCTION
Epidemiological studies have shown that children of women with
gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have increased risk to develop early
cardiovascular disease in childhood and young adulthood (1, 2). We and
others have shown that GDM is associated with fetal cardiac
morphological and functional changes which are mostly noted in the right
ventricle, which is consistent with the dominance of the right heart
late in gestation (3-5). However, it remains unknown whether these
cardiac changes persist in postnatal life and they identify the subgroup
of children who are at increased long-term cardiovascular risk. To date
only few studies have carried out postnatal assessment in offspring of
mothers with GDM but these studies were confined to the neonatal period
(5, 6).
The objective of this study is to determine whether cardiac functional
and structural changes in fetuses of mothers with GDM persist in the
offspring beyond the neonatal period.