Patient's question:
My wife gave birth to a son two days ago. My wife is very weak, and the delivery wasn't smooth. When the doctor checked the newborn, they said it had low blood sugar. What factors or causes can lead to low blood sugar in newborns? What kind of impact does it have on their future?Doctor's answer:
1. Premature infants and small for gestational age infants have low glycogen stores. After birth, maintaining body temperature, breathing, and muscle activity all rely on energy supplied by carbohydrates. If supplementation is not timely, hypoglycemia is prone to occur. Wang Xinliang, Department of Pediatrics, the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University.2. Newborns with respiratory distress syndrome, hard edema, or hemolytic disease often have poor feeding and high glucose consumption, leading to hypoglycemia.
3. Maternal diabetes or genetic diseases in newborns, such as galactosemia or glycogen storage disease, can also cause hypoglycemia in children.
4. Rapid glucose infusion may stimulate increased endogenous insulin secretion in newborns. When glucose infusion is abruptly stopped, reactive hypoglycemia may occur. Therefore, for newborns after asphyxia, especially low birth weight infants, glucose should be gradually reduced and then discontinued after infusion to avoid reactive hypoglycemia.
5. Certain diseases, such as hormone deficiency, diabetes mellitus, congenital hypopituitarism, and congenital metabolic defects like maple syrup urine disease or galactosemia, can all lead to reduced glucose levels. There will be no future impact.