La Neonatologia… caso per caso

Abstract

Neonatal hypotonia, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, necrotizing enterocolitis and persistent hypoglycemia are some of the main topics in neonatology. This work aims to summarize these four neonatal conditions through illustrative clinical cases. The first issue concerns neonatal hypotonia, which can constitute a pivotal sign in the diagnosis of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. However, neonatal hypotonia can be present in several other conditions, such as sepsis and neurological or neuromuscular diseases. The second issue is about bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a disease that mainly affects extremely premature infants. Many therapeutic strategies have been proposed to prevent this disease, such as less invasive ventilation and an early use of inhaled and systemic corticosteroids. Long-term respiratory sequelae in infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia remain one of the main causes of hospitalization in these children in their early years of life. The third issue is necrotizing enterocolitis, a disease that can affect both term and preterm newborns. Multiple risk factors are involved in the pathogenesis of this disease such as an abnormal peripheral perfusion due to congenital heart diseases, small for gestational age (SGA), sepsis, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, chorioamnionitis, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). On the other hand, breastfeeding can play as a preventive factor. Finally, the last topic is about the management of persistent hypoglycaemia, a condition that can be caused by the combination of one of the following mechanisms: inadequate glucose supply in an infant with low glycogen stores (preterm, IUGR, SGA); excessive insulin production (maternal diabetes, large for gestational age); failure of counter-regulatory response to hy-poglycaemia (pituitary or adrenal deficiency