Medical Complications of Pregnancy Diabetes Complicating Pregnancy

Obstetricians use a unique form of classification of diabetes in pregnancy originally proposed by Dr. Priscilla White. The system was designed to estimate the prognosis for pregnancy outcome for women with diabetes who become pregnant. White first described her classification system in a report entitled, “Pregnancy Complicating Diabetes.” The prognostic system was based on the observation that women in whom diabetes was diagnosed at an earlier age, was of longer duration, or produced vascular complications had a poorer pregnancy prognosis. From an obstetric point of view, diabetes is thought to complicate pregnancy. A large amount of resources is committed to finding, monitoring, and treating diabetes first diagnosed during and presumably induced by pregnancy. White never included an induced form of diabetes in her original classification system; class A diabetes was, in her scheme, subclinical or chemical diabetes that nonetheless preceded pregnancy.