Diagnosis and treatment issues concerning neonatal hypoglycemia

Neonatal hypoglycemia is one of the most frequent metabolic disorders of the newborn. If it goes undiagnosed and it is inaccurately treated, it may lead to future neurologic sequelae. History taking and spotting the maternal and fetal risk factors of hypoglycemia right after birth are important. The objective was to spot the risk factors for hypoglycemia- quite a frequent issue. We carried out a retrospective study of babies with hypoglycemia; we included the infants born in Galati St. Andrew Department Emergency Hospital between 1.01.2010-31.12.2011. There were 402 babies with hypoglycemia out of 4070 infants born in our maternity between 1.01.2010-31.12.2011 – a 9% total incidence. The inborn babies were distributed according to their gestational age as follows: 482- preemies, 228- postmature infants and 3360 term newborns. Hypoglycemia occurs frequently in neonatal wards. It had a 9,8% incidence in our overall study group, a 65% incidence in the premature babies group, a 65,2% incidence in the large for gestational age babies group, a 50,9% incidence in the small for gestational age babies group and a 5,4% incidence in the appropriate for gestational age babies group. These results are in accordance with the literature data.