The influence of preconceptional glucose values on the outcome of pregnancy.

A relationship between maternal diabetes and fetal malformations has been recognized for a long time, but there has been considerable difference of opinion about the size of the risk. Several defects of the pelvis and lower limbs appear to be relatively common in offspring of diabetic mothers. In experimental studies a dose relationship has been shown between some drugs (insulin-Trypan blue) and lower limb malformations. Three patients are discribed with congenital malformations with diabetes or prediabetes during pregnancy. Is the caudal regression syndrome a part of a larger syndrome caused by a disturbance of glucose homeostasis?