THAT NEWBORN infants of diabetic mothers have a high neonatal mortality has long been known.* Postmortem examinations of such infants have shed little light on the exact nature of the factors responsible for death. The most extensive review of this problem has been made by Warren and LeCompte,3 who analyzed the postmortem findings of 50 infants of diabetic mothers and concluded that the cause of death in the majority of the infants of their series was not clear. They noted, however, certain characteristic findings, namely, macrosomia, visceromegaly, and hyperplasia of the islets of Langerhans, together with infiltration of eosinophilic leukocytes.
Miller † has been particularly impressed by the cardiac enlargement of infants of diabetic mothers and has attributed the high neonatal mortality rate to cardiac failure. He based his conclusions not only on the weight of the heart at autopsy, but on the size of the heart by x-ray.