
April 30, 2004
Other
Question from Greensboro, North Carolina, USA:
I often wonder about what the “trigger” could have been for my son since he was never terribly sick other than having suspected RSV. I recently remembered that I got a terrible stomach bug that was going around when I was pregnant with him. I was so dehydrated that I had to go to the hospital to have an IV for fluids. My son was diagnosed at 15 months old. Could this have possibly been the “trigger”?
Answer:
The short answer is that we don’t know. There has been some work linking viral infections during pregnancy with later diabetes in offspring but this is by no means proven. Interestingly, the viruses most often mentioned are enteroviruses which can cause tummy upsets.
KJR