I am in my 30th week of pregnancy, have had a glucose test, with the doctors say is only borderline. I have excessive amniotic fluid, and I am on bed rest and cutting back sugars and starches.

The baby’s organs seem fine on the sonogram, but the doctors feel that the baby will be born prematurely. At my amniocentesis their was a deletion in the 6th chromosome which indicates type 1 diabetes, but I am not getting any answers to my questions. Could the baby have diabetes?

Abnormalities on chromosome 6 have been linked to diabetes in a number of ways. I think you need to talk to the genetics counsellor to get a more precise idea of exactly what abnormality was found and what kind of diabetes this might lead to in your baby.

Of course, you also need to know why an amniocentesis was done in the first place. It may have been that the doctors suspected that you might have Late-onset Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood (LADA) which could be confirmed by an antibody test. At the same time, they wanted to see if the baby had an HLA antigen type that would have made him/her susceptible to type 1A (autoimmune) diabetes.The hydramnios and marginal blood sugar level would favour this. Alternatively the baby may be small for gestational age (SGA) a condition that may be associated with what is called uniparental disomy of chromosome 6, an abnormality that is inherited from the father and may be associated with transient neonatal diabetes. In addition, there are other even rarer possibilities.

DOB