Hypoglycemia and neurological outcome in neonates: A retrospective study in a tertiary care hospital in Henan, China

Abstract

This is a retrospective study done on 170 children, aged 3 to 5 years, who were delivered in the third affiliated hospital of Zhengzhou university, Henan, China between Jan 2019 to Dec 2020. With the help of hospital records, a systematic detection of hypoglycemia (<2.2 mmol/L or 40 mg/dL) was carried out in the study population from birth to 28 days after birth. Main outcomes were a compiled neurological or neurodevelopmental outcome; any developmental delay; motor developmental delay; and cognitive developmental delay. For analysis, the study population was divided into two groups: one group consisted of children who suffered from 5 or more episodes of hypoglycemia in neonatal period (n=42) and the second group consisted those who suffered with less than 5 episodes (n=128). We noted that the group having 5 or more hypoglycemic episodes had a higher proportion of premature or small for date children than the other group (76.2% Vs 60.9%), and the difference is statistically significant. In adjusted regression analyses, the odds ratio (OR) of any neurological or neurodevelopmental outcome was 1.48 (95% confidence interval: 1.17–1.88) in group with 5 or more hypoglycemic episodes as compared to the other group. The adjusted risk of any developmental delay was more than doubled (OR 2.53 [1.71–3.73]), the adjusted risk of motor developmental delay was almost doubled (OR: 1.91 [1.06–3.44]) and the adjusted risk of cognitive developmental delay was almost tripled (OR 2.85 [1.70–4.76]) in the group that had more than 5 hypoglycemic episodes in neonatal period.