Effects of neonatal hypoglycaemia on the nervous system: a pathological study.

Irreversible pathological changes in the central nervous system due to prolonged hypoglycaemia have been described many times in adults (see Lawrence, Meyer, and Nevin, 1942).It is less well known that hypoglycaemia can occur in the neonatal period and that it may be a cause of brain damage at that time.In full-term and premature babies the normal blood glucose concentration during the first few days of extrauterine life is in the range of 30 to 60 mg./100 ml.; blood glucose levels of less than 20 mg./100 ml. are regarded as abnormal.The first account of infants with abnormal clinical signs attributable to hypoglycaemia was probably that of Hartmann and Jaudon (1937).The importance of the condition was not appreciated until 1959 when Comblath, Odell, and Levin described eight new- Protected by copyright.