RELATION OF BLOOD-GLUCOSE TO HÆMATOCRIT, BIRTHWEIGHT, AND OTHER BODY MEASUREMENTS IN NORMAL AND GROWTH-RETARDED NEWBORN INFANTS

Abstract

Blood-glucose and hæmatocrits were determined from birth to 7 days of age in forty normal-sized term infants and in thirty-eight term infants with intrauterine growth retardation whose birthweights were below the 10th percentile on the Denver intrauterine growth chart. Mean values for blood-glucose and hæmatocrit in eighteen of the growth-retarded infants, whose birthweights were less than 2 standard deviations below the mean for their gestational ages, did not differ from the normals. The remaining twenty growth-retarded infants whose birthweights were greater than 2 standard deviations below the mean, had mean blood-glucose levels which were significantly lower and hæmatocrits which were significantly higher than normal-sized infants at most times during the first 7 days of life. Birth-weight, blood-glucose, and hæmatocrit were not significantly related in the normal infants. Blood-glucose and hæmatocrit were inversely related in the growth-retarded infants, but in the severely growth-retarded infants this relationship was not a real one since glucose and hæmatocrit were related to birthweight. When the effect of birthweight was removed by multiple regression analysis, the relation of blood-glucose and hæmatocrit became insignificant. Blood-glucose was inversely related to the ratio of head circumference to body-weight in the severely growth-retarded infants. It is concluded that it is the infant whose birth-weight is more than two standard deviations below the mean for his gestational age, with