A historical perspective on gestational diabetes

Abstract

Extreme fetal macrosomia occurred in the first recorded case of diabetes in pregnancy in 1823. The belief that the diabetic condition was in some way a symptom of the pregnancy, which dates to that first report, has led to the more recent concept of gestational diabetes. Lesser degrees of maternal hyperglycemia were also recognized to be a risk to the baby, and early studies of carbohydrate intolerance in pregnancy in Boston and Los Angeles have set the stage for the worldwide interest in this maternal/fetal interaction.