Gestational diabetes poses a risk for both mother and child. In the pregnant woman, it increases the risk of, among other things, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes in the future, while in the foetus, it increases the risk that it will be born with excessive body weight. It is precisely because of such risks that further methods of diagnosing gestational diabetes as early as possible are still being sought. Scientists from the National Institutes of Health argue that it is possible to estimate the risk of this disease by testing the blood concentration of glycated haemoglobin.