Hypoglycemia not tied to neurodevelopmental outcomes for children born late preterm
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Key takeaways:
- Late preterm infants with vs. without hypoglycemia had similar neurodevelopmental status at age 6 years or older.
- Overall, 22.9% of late preterm infants had hypoglycemia.
Hypoglycemia was not associated with later neurodevelopmental outcomes for children born late preterm, according to findings presented at The Pregnancy Meeting.
“Hypoglycemia in late preterm infants, found to be mostly transient in participants of the parent Antenatal Late Preterm Steroids trial, did not result in adverse neurodevelopment,” Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, MD, MS, department chair of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Diego Health, told Healio. “This may be surprising since many associate hypoglycemia with adverse neurodevelopment.”
Gyamfi-Bannerman conducted a secondary analysis of a prospective, follow-up study with data from 1,020 children aged 6 years or older with blood glucose data who were delivered in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Antenatal Late Preterm Steroids study. All children received neurocognitive testing performed by certified psychologists. Researchers conducted comparisons between children with and without hypoglycemia and between children with moderate hypoglycemia (25-39 mg/dL) or severe hypoglycemia (< 25 mg/dL).
The primary outcome was the proportion of general conceptual ability scores lower than 85. Secondary outcomes included the Gross Motor Function Classification System, Social Responsiveness Scale and Child Behavior Checklist.
Overall, 83.5% of children were delivered late preterm, 22.9% of children had hypoglycemia at birth and 41.5% of those with hypoglycemia were treated.
Children born with hypoglycemia had a higher likelihood of having private insurance, having older mothers, receiving betamethasone and identifying as white.
Gyamfi-Bannerman observed no differences in general conceptual ability scores lower than 85 among children born with vs. without hypoglycemia (15.9% vs. 18.5%; adjusted RR = 1.03; 95% CI, 0.74-1.45), respectively. In addition, researchers also noted no differences in scores for the Gross Motor Function Classification System, Social Responsiveness Scale or Child Behavior Checklist between children born with vs. without hypoglycemia, respectively.
Hypoglycemia severity was not associated with primary or secondary outcomes in this analysis.
“Hypoglycemia is common in late preterm infants, so this provides some reassurance about the consequences of hypoglycemia,” Gyamfi-Bannerman told Healio. “Of note, of the 944 children whose data were used in this secondary analysis, only four of them previously had hypoglycemia that lasted more than 72 hours, so we cannot draw conclusions about prolonged hypoglycemia.”
For more information:
Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, MD, MS, can be reached at cgyamfibannerman@health.ucsd.edu.