Introduction:

Children, whose mothers suffer from diabetes, have higher incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, low cognitive activity, attention deficit, schizophrenia and other autism spectrum diseases.

Objective:

To explain the molecular mechanisms that underlie the appearance of neurodevelopmental disorders in children of pregnant women with diabetes.

Methods:

A review of the literature that appears in Google, MEDLINE/PubMed and SciELO electronic databases, was carried out. Articles published from 2000 to 2020 were reviewed. The keywords used were hyperglycemia, neurodevelopment, congenital malformations, and epigenetics.

Results:

The high risk that hyperglycemia represents during intrauterine development is highlighted. The relative risk that children of mothers with pregestational diabetes have of presenting malformations of the central nervous system is 15.5 times higher than in pregnant women without diabetes. The hippocampus is especially sensitive to changes in glucose levels. Maternal diabetes can leave negative print on the ability to process information, acquire skills and have appropriate social behavior in their children.

Conclusions:

Alterations in metabolism conditioned by hyperglycemia, oxidative stress, low-grade inflammation and epigenetic modifications create a fatal mechanism that supports abnormal development in children of pregnant women with diabetes.

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