Can you please tell me why diabetes affects the lung surfactant of the fetus?

Delayed maturation: Maternal diabetes during pregnancy has an impact on the maturation of the baby's lungs, especially the surfactant system which tends to become fully functional around 38-40th week in normal pregnancies. With maternal diabetes, this process gets delayed & can lead to problems with breathing for the baby after birth (esp if born by c section). Talk to yr doc for further eval of lung maturity by test.