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Monogenic diabetes (MODY and neonatal diabetes): diabetes caused by a change in one gene, who gets it, the genetic test, families, and treatment
For anyone told they have diabetes young, with a family full of it, who wonders whether it is really type 1 or type 2; for parents of a baby found to have diabetes in the first months of life; and for the people who help them. It passes on, by name, what the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, part of the NIH) says about monogenic diabetes: MODY and neonatal diabetes, how common they are, the symptoms and health problems, the tests and who gets a genetic test, how it passes in families, genetic counseling, and the medicines. NIDDK has its page in Spanish too. It builds the questions to ask and prints a card. Nothing is saved.
Right now
- A baby who is very sleepy or hard to wake, breathing fast, or not feeding? Call 911 or go to an emergency room now (ours).
- Someone with diabetes who is confused, very sleepy, breathing fast, or throwing up and cannot keep fluids down? Get emergency care now; our diabetes page says when high or low blood sugar is an emergency (ours).
- At the end of your rope, or having thoughts of suicide? Call or text 988, any hour, free (ours).
More help
- Diabetes on this site: When blood sugar goes too low or too high · The A1C test · Blood sugar log · Prediabetes · Gestational diabetes · Heart, blood and hormones: find the right page.
- Around it: Kidney disease · Diabetic retinopathy · Diabetes and your feet · Caring for someone.
- For you: Paying for medicines · Low-cost health care · Get ready for your appointment. In an emergency: Help right now (988, 911). All our free tools.
Your heart, blood pressure, blood sugar, thyroid or blood, and not sure this is the right page? The pages on this site for a heart attack or stroke, blood pressure, AFib, heart failure, cholesterol, diabetes and prediabetes, the thyroid, anemia, sickle cell and menopause, on one list.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse or genetic counselor has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 22, 2026 on NIDDK’s (NIH) page Monogenic Diabetes (MODY & Neonatal Diabetes Mellitus), every section, last reviewed in August 2024. Ours: the 911 and 988 lines and the emergency signs in a baby; never stopping or switching a diabetes medicine on your own; the questions to ask; the card; the links to our other pages; and the order of the steps. What we left out: its clinical trials and research sections, its references, its acknowledgment, and the other pages it links to, which we did not read. Nothing you tick or type here is saved or sent.