Should blood glucose monitoring be done in overweight and/or giant infants of non-diabetic mothers?
Monitoring of serum glucose levels in 60 asymptomatic overweight (4.000-4.499 g) and giant (greater than 4.500 g) newborns of non-diabetic mothers during the first 72 hours of life did not reveal pathological values. The mean result of giant infants was lower than that of the group less than 4.500 g. In mothers of overweight infants diabetes mellitus should always be kept in mind. However, the diagnosis may be difficult particularly in its latent form due to metabolic alterations caused by pregnancy. For this reason it is necessary to monitor blood glucose levels for hypoglycemia in these newborns just as in infants of mothers having a manifest diabetes mellitus.
