Technology and pregnancy

In the USA, depending upon the diagnosis criteria used, 135,000-200,000 women annually develop gestational diabetes mellitus, adding to the number of pregnant women already suffering from either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Maternal hyperglycaemia and the resultant fetal hyperinsulinaemia are central to the pathophysiology of diabetic complications of pregnancy. These complications include congenital malformations and an increase in neonatal intensive care unit admission and birth trauma. In addition, there is an increased rate of accelerated fetal growth, neonatal metabolic complications and risk for stillbirth. Importantly, during the last century there were two breakthroughs in diabetes management and monitoring that changed the course of treatment: the discovery of insulin and the progress in the understanding of glucose monitoring. As technology has evolved, both glucose monitoring and insulin administration can now be achieved in a continuous fashion. In this review of the literature we focus on the utility of new technologies in the management and monitoring of diabetes in pregnancy.