Denmark researchers recently completed a study to determine if maternal diabetes increases the risk of refractive vision error in offspring.
There are three types of refractive errors, which include myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness) and astigmatism.
Researchers poured over Danish records of over 2 million people born between 1977 and 2016. Over a 25-year time period, researchers followed up with the offspring to determine whether there was any refractive error. Study results were published in the journal Diabetolgia.
Participants were asked if their mothers had diabetes before or during their pregnancy. What researchers discovered was 19,965 of the children born to mothers without diabetes were diagnosed with a refractive error compared to 533 infants born to mothers with diabetes. But having a mother with diabetes increased the risk of the child having a refractive vision problem by 39% and the severity of the refractive error was increased in the children born to diabetic moms.
With these study findings, researchers hope that eye care professionals will conduct early vision screenings on infants born to mothers with a diabetic history to detect refractive errors as soon as possible.
