In 2007, Ishola Agbaje, Deirdre Rogers, Carmel McVicar, Neil McClure, Albert Atkinson, Con Mallidis, and Sheena Lewis published “Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus: Implications for Male Reproductive Function,” hereby “Diabetes Mellitus: Implications,” in the journal Human Reproduction. In their article, the authors explore the effects of elevated blood sugar in the form of diabetes mellitus on the quality of male sperm. When investigating possible fertility issues, fertility specialists often study semen, the male reproductive fluid that contains sperm cells to detect changes in sperm count, movement, and structure. In “Diabetes Mellitus: Implications,” the authors use both conventional semen analysis and technical molecular methods to assess the quality of sperm from diabetic and non-diabetic men. The authors found that men with diabetes had higher levels of DNA damage within their sperm and highlighted a need for additional research on the link between diabetes and male reproductive health.

In April 1994, Elizabeth Raymond, Sven Cnattingius, and John Kiely published “Effects of Maternal Age, Parity, and Smoking on the Risk of Stillbirth” in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, now known as BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The article examines how advanced maternal age, defined as delivery at thirty-five years old or older, cigarette smoking, and nulliparity, or the state of never having given birth, can negatively impact pregnancy. At the time of publication, according to Raymond and colleagues, stillbirths comprised over half of all perinatal, or close to birth, deaths and more than one-third of total fetal and infant deaths in Europe and North America. In the article, Raymond and her coauthors demonstrate how certain risk factors may increase the risk of stillbirth at different stages of pregnancy, which helped set a foundation for future research in interventions to prevent stillbirth.

Priscilla White studied the treatment of diabetes in mothers, pregnant women, and children during the twentieth century in the US. White began working with children with Type 1 diabetes in 1924 at Elliott Proctor Joslin’s practice in Boston, Massachusetts. Type 1 diabetes is an incurable disease where the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Insulin is a hormone that allows the body to use sugar from food for energy and store sugars for future use. Joslin and White co-authored many publications on children and diabetes, in 1952, White helped Joslin found the Joslin Clinic. White noted that many of the children with whom she worked when they became mothers they passed the disease on to their children. Her research focused on diabetic pregnant women and female children with diabetes. White implemented the technique of delivering infants of diabetic women early, which increased the survival rate of diabetic women’s infants.