Low blood sugar in newborns (neonatal hypoglycaemia)
Low blood sugar in a baby soon after birth. In the Sugar Babies trial, babies at risk were enrolled and 242 of 514 (47%) went on to have low blood sugar. The trial authors call it common and a preventable cause of brain damage.
Also called Neonatal hypoglycemia · Newborn low blood sugar
- Condition
- In this atlas
Overview
Technical summary
The page rests on the Sugar Babies trial abstract (2013) and its mid-childhood follow-up (Neonatology 2023). It sets out no blood glucose thresholds for diagnosis; the trial defined treatment failure as a blood glucose under 2.6 mmol/L after two treatment attempts. It links to the gestational diabetes page, but no claim on this page is about that link.
Burden
No burden claims are published.
Claims and evidence
No claims are published for this condition yet.
Clinical links
Each link reports what one cited claim says about one population. "Evaluated for" means studied, not shown to work. These links do not show that anything is effective or right for you.
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Claim, not a settled fact Treated by: Dextrose gel for newborn low blood sugar
Applies to Newborn- Babies of 35 to 42 weeks of gestation, younger than 48 hours old and at risk of hypoglycaemia. Of 514 enrolled babies, 242 (47%) became hypoglycaemic and were randomised; 237 were analysed.
- A tertiary centre in New Zealand.
- New Zealand
- Newborns of 35 to 42 weeks of gestation, under 48 hours old. No gestational or postnatal bound is set in the structured fields because the abstract gives the ages as a range and in hours.
- Gestational age Not reported
- Postnatal age Not reported
In the Sugar Babies trial in New Zealand, babies with low blood sugar who were given 40% dextrose gel (200 mg/kg) had treatment failure less often than babies given placebo gel: 14% (16 babies) against 24% (29 babies), relative risk 0.57 (95% CI 0.33 to 0.98; p=0.04). Treatment failure meant a blood glucose concentration under 2.6 mmol/L after two treatment attempts. The authors noted no serious adverse events.Limitations. Single tertiary centre in New Zealand. Babies were of 35 to 42 weeks of gestation and under 48 hours old, and the comparison was with feeding alone plus placebo gel. Treatment failure is a short-term blood glucose outcome; later outcomes are in the mid-childhood follow-up claim. Only the abstract was read.
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Claim, not a settled fact Evaluated for this: Dextrose gel for newborn low blood sugar
Applies to Newborn- The recipient of the treatment was the newborn; the measured population is the same people as children at a mean age of 9.3 years: 184 of 227 eligible children (81%), who had been randomised as babies to dextrose gel or placebo gel.
- Not stated in the abstract.
- Not stated in this abstract. The original trial ran in New Zealand.
- Mid-childhood, 9 to 10 years of age, after treatment as newborns
- Gestational age Not reported
- Postnatal age Not reported
At 9 to 10 years of age, children who had received dextrose gel as newborns did not differ from the placebo group in low educational achievement (42% against 45%; relative risk 1.04, 95% CI 0.76 to 1.44), but had lower visual perception standard scores (95.2 against 100.6; mean difference -5.68, 95% CI -9.79 to -1.57) and more low visual perception scores (23% against 11%; relative risk 2.23, 95% CI 1.13 to 4.37). Other secondary outcomes were similar. The authors concluded that dextrose gel does not appear to cause clinically significant differences in educational achievement or other neurodevelopmental outcomes.Limitations. Follow-up of a randomised trial with 184 of 227 eligible children (81%) assessed. The visual perception difference was a secondary outcome. The abstract does not say whether secondary results were adjusted for multiple comparisons. Only the abstract was read.
Record details
- Record id
maternal:neonatal-hypoglycaemia- Content hash
111be6f7dee8ee45442f2d449ef28815815b968843e99e3ddfb5b3848c0b48e6