Diabetes in pregnancy can hamper infant memory

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 17 (Reuters) Babies whose mothers had diabetes during pregnancy may be less able to form early memories than children whose mothers had normal pregnancies, a US researcher said.

The study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, suggests that babies deprived of oxygen and iron before birth are not as able to develop early memories.

The need for iron doubles during pregnancy because it is used to make blood cells for the fetus. In pregnant mothers with diabetes, fluctuating glucose levels can result in iron deficiency, which can reduce the blood's capacity to carry oxygen.

''When oxygen and iron deficiencies occur prenatally, they alter the development of memory,'' said Tracy DeBoer of the University of California Davis.

DeBoer studied infants of diabetic mothers at 12 months and again at age 3 1/2. Her study suggested that memory deficits that appeared at one year persisted into early childhood.

She did not specify which type of diabetes the mothers had, but type-1, type-2 and gestational diabetes all affect blood sugar levels.

In the older group, the babies were shown a series of nine objects in three levels of difficulty. In the highest level of difficulty, babies whose mothers had been diabetic during pregnancy on average could recall two fewer objects than those whose mothers had a normal pregnancy.

The finding was consistent with the deficits measured in a simpler test of infants at 12 months, she said.

The notion that babies could recall anything at all in the first two years of life is relatively new.

Researchers have long thought that childhood amnesia -- the inability to remember early life -- was because babies could not form memories, but researchers at the meeting said new studies suggested infants could recall things as early as four months of age.

Duke University researcher Patricia Bauer yesterday told the meeting new studies suggest that infants do form memories by late in the first year that are similar to adults, but ''the rate of forgetting is faster than in adults.'' Memories from early childhood that survive this process of forgetting tend to be particularly meaningful, she added.

Reuters BDP DB0909