Shape Information in Repeated Glucose Curves during Pregnancy Provided Significant Physiological Information for Neonatal Outcomes

ObjectiveTo use multilevel functional principal component analysis to exploit the information inherent in the shape of longitudinally sampled glucose curves during pregnancy, and to analyse the impact of glucose curve characteristics on neonatal birth weight, percentage fat and cord blood C-peptide.Study Design and SettingA cohort study of healthy, pregnant women (n = 884). They underwent two oral glucose tolerance tests (gestational weeks 14–16 and 30–32), which gave two glucose curves per woman.ResultsGlucose values were higher, and peaked later in third trimester than in early pregnancy. The curve characteristic “general glucose level” accounted for 91% of the variation across visits, and 72% within visits. The curve characteristics “timing of postprandial peak”, and “oscillating glucose levels” accounted for a larger part of the variation within visits (15% and 8%), than across visits (7% and ConclusionShape information in entire OGTT curves provides significant physiological information of importance for several outcomes, and may contribute to the understanding of the metabolic changes during pregnancy.