What are the causes of neonatal hypoglycemia?

If a child's blood sugar concentration is too low after birth, it is easy to cause symptoms of hypoglycemia. For example, the child is prone to drowsiness, excessive sweating, pale complexion, and even respiratory arrest. This is very harmful to the child's health. Parents should take their children to the hospital for examination in time, and then carry out symptomatic treatment.

1. Symptoms of neonatal hypoglycemia

Most people with hypoglycemia lack typical clinical symptoms, and the clinical manifestations of children with hypoglycemia vary depending on the degree of hypoglycemia. The clinical manifestations of the same hypoglycemia level vary greatly. In a minority of cases, symptoms may manifest clinically as poor response, sweating, pallor, chronic cyanosis, feeding difficulty, drowsiness, apnea, cyanosis, abnormal crying, tremors, shaking, and even convulsions.

2. Causes of neonatal hypoglycemia

1. Temporary hypoglycemia

(1) Insufficient glucose storage is mainly seen in: ① Premature infants and infants with small gestational age have liver glycogen storage mainly in the last 3 months of pregnancy. Therefore, the younger the gestational age, the less glycogen storage and the lower the enzyme activity in gluconeogenesis; ② Perinatal stress response: hypoxia and acidosis increase catecholamine secretion, stimulate increased liver glycogenolysis, and anaerobic glycolysis increases glucose utilization; ③ Other conditions such as hypothermia, sepsis, congenital heart disease, etc. are often caused by insufficient calorie intake and increased glucose utilization.

(2) Increased glucose utilization (transient hyperinsulinemia) is mainly seen in: ① Infants of diabetic mothers suffer from temporary hyperinsulinemia due to excessive blood sugar in the womb, and the blood sugar supply from the mother is suddenly interrupted after birth; ② Rh hemolytic disease causes destruction of red blood cells, leading to the release of glutathione, which stimulates an increase in insulin concentration.

2. Persistent hypoglycemia

(1) Hyperinsulinemia is mainly seen in pancreatic islet cell hyperplasia, Beckwith syndrome, and pancreatic islet cell adenoma.

(2) Endocrine defects such as congenital pituitary insufficiency, cortisol deficiency, glucagon deficiency, growth hormone deficiency, etc.

(3) Genetic metabolic diseases: ① Abnormal glucose metabolism such as glycogen storage disease type I and type III; ② Fatty acid metabolic diseases such as medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency; ③ Amino acid metabolic defects such as branched-chain amino acid metabolism disorders and leucine metabolism defects.