Glucose Tolerance in the Neonatal Period and During the First Six Months of Life

Abstract

It is well established that the average blood sugar level of normal and healthy full-term and premature infants is lower than in older children, although the individual variations in, and range of the level during, the neonatal period are considerable (Baens, Lundeen and Cornblath, 1963; Farquhar, 1954; Pedersen, 1952; Smith, 1959; Wolf, 1960; Zetterstrom, 1961, among others). In addition the glucose tolerance, measured by oral or intravenous tests, seems to be lower in normal newborn infants than in older children and adults (Baird and Farquhar, 1962; Bowie, Mulligan and Schwartz, 1963; Stegmann and Beck, 1955). These observations do not fully agree with the conception that 'the normal term or premature infant has essentially normal (if perhaps a little slow or imprecise) regulatory mechanisms for carbohydrate metabolism' (Smith, 1959). It was, therefore, the purpose of the present study to reinvestigate glucose tolerance during the newborn period and in older infants and children in order to establish at what age the possibly low tolerance of the newborn reaches the adult level.