Change of Plasma Glucose Levels in Term Neonates during the First 72 hours using the New Reagent Strip Method

Kim, Woong Heum; Choi, Jung Hwan

Abstract

Blood glucose levels were measured in 89 healthy term neonates during the first 72 hours using the SureStep, a newly developed reagent test strip method by LifeScan. The blood samples were obtained by heel-stick puncture and blood glucose concentrations were monitored at birth(0), 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours after birth. Mean and standard deviation of their measurement were compared according to postnatal hours and type of delivery. Comparison of significance between mean plasma glucose levels were made with the Wilcoxon rank sum test and significance level of 0.05 was used to determine which pair-wise comparisons were significantly different. The mean plasma glucose concentrations of first 6 hours were significantly lower than those of 12, 24, 48, 72 hours. This finding indicates that plasma glucose stabilization in healthy fullterm neonates can be expected with the feedings. The mean plasma glucose concentration at birth in the neonates of cesarean section (64.5+-8.06 mg/dl) was significantly lower than that of vaginal delivery (80.3+-20.7 mg/dl), but there were no significant differences after 2 hours. This may be due to the difference in prenatal care of obstetric department of Horamae hospital (C/S: midnight NPO and Hartmann solution, V/D: NPO with labor pain and 5% dextrose solution intravenously). In summary, the changes in perinatal care, especially prenatal fluid therapy and time of first feeding should be considered in defining neonatal hypoglycemia. Our data suggest that hypoglycemia should he defined as below 40 mg/dl during the first 6 hours and below 55 mg/dl thereafter.