Study into sugar levels for newborns
Scientists don’t really know what amount of blood sugar is normal in newborn babies. Well, they sort of know, but the data is old and probably unreliable because the measurements date to a time when newborn care was very different from today, says Dr Deborah Harris a Nurse Practitioner Neonatology at the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at Waikato Hospital.
It’s well established that low blood sugar occurs in about 15 per cent of newborns and can lead to brain damage in extreme cases.
But the data on healthy levels of blood sugar was gathered decades ago, when most healthy babies were bottle fed instead of breast fed in the first few days of life, Harris says.
As well, when these studies were done, most babies were kept in a hospital nursery and brought to mum for occasional visits. These days, mum and healthy babies are kept together and go home much sooner, she says.
As these variables were likely to affect blood sugar levels, it was necessary for scientists to re-measure blood sugar in healthy newborns – to reestablish the baseline. Harris and colleagues got to use some modern tech as well.
They tested 70 infants who were born in Waikato Hospital between November 2015 and August 2017. Blood samples were collected up to 16 times from heel pricks over the first five days of life. In most cases, babies were already living at home for the later tests. A blood sample was also taken from placentas.
Babies also wore a small monitor which collected continuous glucose data. Parents were lent smartphones with an app loaded to record when the children were fed and other details around feeding.
This will provide for the ‘‘first time detailed information about the natural patterns of sugar levels over the first five days after birth’’, Harris says.
The results have not come back yet. Harris expected to break the blind on her data last week and hoped to get an academic paper published towards the end of the year.
The Glucose in Well Babies Study could have impacts on how healthy and low-blood sugar newborns are treated, Harris says. In 2013, Harris was the lead author on a paper in The Lancet, widely known as the Sugar Baby study. It showed that a swipe of dextrose gel on the inside of a baby’s cheek is an effective firstline treatment for newborns with low-blood sugar.
The technique was first developed to help diabetics and Harris applied it to newborns. The technique – which costs a few dollars and is demonstrably simple – is used with newborns in hospitals across the Englishspeaking world and spreading elsewhere, Harris says.
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