Early life disease programming during the preconception and prenatal period: Making the link between stressful life events and type-1 diabetes

Abstract

Background: To assess the risk of developing Type-1 diabetes among children who were exposed to maternal bereavement during the prenatal or 1-year preconception period. Methods: We identified N = 1,548,746 singleton births born in Denmark between January 1st 1979 through December 31st 2004, and their next of kin. Altogether, 39,857 children were exposed to bereavement during their prenatal life. The main outcome of interest was hospitalization for type-1 diabetes (ICD 8: 249; ICD 10: E10). Results: We found the strongest association for type-1 diabetes among children exposed to traumatic father or sibling deaths (aIRR: 2.03, 1.22-3.38); the association was mainly seen for girls (aIRR: 2.91, 1.61-5.26). Conclusions: We found evidence to suggest that female fetuses exposed to severe prenatal stress are at increased risk for developing type-1 diabetes. © 2010 Virk et al.