INS and gestational diabetes: Some of the early work in rat models of GDM using streptozocin (beta-cell specific apoptosis-inducer) treated dams suggest that GDM offspring had increased islet mass associated with islet hyperplasia, and increased circulating insulin levels neonatally (Kervran et al. 1978, Bihoreau et al. 1986a, Aerts et al. 1990).