Pregnancy in teenagers diagnosed with type 1 diabetes mellitus in childhood: a national population-based e-cohort study

The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics and outcomes of pregnancies in a national cohort of teenage (<20 years) and young adult women (≥20 years) with and without childhood-onset (<15 years) type 1 diabetes. We hypothesised that, owing to poor glycaemic control during the teenage years, pregnancy outcomes would be poorer in teenage mothers with type 1 diabetes than young adult mothers with type 1 diabetes and mothers without diabetes.

The Brecon Register of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes diagnosed in Wales since 1995 was linked to population-based datasets in the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank, creating an electronic cohort (e-cohort) of legal births (live or stillbirths beyond 24 weeks’ gestation) to women aged less than 35 years between 1995 and 2013 in Wales. Teenage pregnancy rates were calculated based on the number of females in the same birth cohort in Wales. Pregnancy outcomes, including pre-eclampsia, preterm birth, low birthweight, macrosomia, congenital malformations, stillbirths and hospital admissions during the first year of life, were obtained from electronic records for the whole Welsh population. We used logistic and negative binomial regression to compare outcomes among teenage and young adult mothers with and without type 1 diabetes.

A total of 197,796 births were eligible for inclusion, including 330 to girls and women with childhood-onset type 1 diabetes, of whom 68 were teenagers (age 14–19 years, mean 17.9 years) and 262 were young adults (age 20–32 years, mean 24.0 years). The mean duration of diabetes was 14.3 years (9.7 years for teenagers; 15.5 years for young adults). Pregnancy rates were lower in teenagers with type 1 diabetes than in teenagers without diabetes (mean annual teenage pregnancy rate between 1999 and 2013: 8.6 vs 18.0 per 1000 teenage girls, respectively; p < 0.001). In the background population, teenage pregnancy was associated with deprivation (p < 0.001), but this was not the case for individuals with type 1 diabetes (p = 0.85). Glycaemic control was poor in teenage and young adult mothers with type 1 diabetes (mean HbA_1c based on closest value to conception: 81.3 and 80.2 mmol/mol [9.6% and 9.5%], respectively, p = 0.78). Glycaemic control improved during pregnancy in both groups but to a greater degree in young adults, who had significantly better glycaemic control than teenagers by the third trimester (mean HbA_1c: 54.0 vs 67.4 mmol/mol [7.1% vs 8.3%], p = 0.01). All adverse outcomes were more common among mothers with type 1 diabetes than mothers without diabetes. Among those with type 1 diabetes, hospital admissions during the first year of life were more common among babies of teenage vs young adult mothers (adjusted OR 5.91 [95% CI 2.63, 13.25]). Other outcomes were no worse among teenage mothers with type 1 diabetes than among young adult mothers with diabetes.

Teenage girls with childhood-onset type 1 diabetes in Wales are less likely to have children than teenage girls without diabetes. Teenage pregnancy in girls with type 1 diabetes, unlike in the background population, is not associated with social deprivation. In our cohort, glycaemic control was poor in both teenage and young adult mothers with type 1 diabetes. Pregnancy outcomes were comparable between teenage and young adult mothers with type 1 diabetes, but hospital admissions during the first year of life were five times more common among babies of teenage mothers with type 1 diabetes than those of young adult mothers with diabetes.