Neonatal heel blood

We all know that after many newborns are born, doctors will take some blood samples from the heels for testing. Many parents do not understand why they must take blood from the heels. In fact, taking blood samples from newborns is mainly used to check whether the newborns have thyroid diseases, which is what we often call cretinism. The following editor will give you a detailed introduction to the test of newborn heel blood.

What diseases does the newborn heel blood screening test for?

The main items of newborn heel blood screening include congenital hypothyroidism and phenylketonuria. If these two diseases are not checked and treated in time, they may cause central nervous system and intellectual decline in children, and in severe cases may even lead to mental retardation in children.

What is congenital hypothyroidism

Congenital hypothyroidism, commonly known as "cretinism", is a disease caused by reduced or complete lack of thyroid hormone secretion.

Symptoms of the disease in newborns: The main signs are not crying, poor response, not moving, and low muscle tone. It may also be accompanied by feeding difficulties, constipation, abdominal distension, prolonged physiological jaundice, etc.

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an autosomal recessive genetic disease. It is named because the baby has phenylalanine metabolism disorder, which causes a large amount of phenylpyruvate and other metabolites to be excreted in the urine. If phenylalanine cannot be metabolized normally in the baby's body and accumulates in the body, it will cause damage to the central nervous system and a series of pathological changes.

Symptoms of the disease in newborns: If the baby suffers from this disease, the hair will turn from black to yellow, the skin will turn white, the hands will have slight tremors, the limbs will move with heavy loads, etc., and there will be a very unpleasant smell of rat urine in the urine. Vomiting, diarrhea, eczema, etc. are also prone to occur.

These two diseases have one thing in common, which is "slow reaction, stupidity, developmental delay, etc." If discovered and treated early, the baby will be able to develop healthily like a normal baby. If discovered late, the baby will have intellectual disabilities, so parents should not underestimate these two or three drops of blood, it is enough to change the baby's life. Therefore, parents must cooperate with the screening procedures arranged by the hospital.