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Letter
Definition and monitoring of neonatal hypoglycaemia: a nationwide survey of NHS England Neonatal Units
  1. Kathryn Charlotte Dixon1,
  2. Rebecca Louise Ferris1,
  3. Dilshad Marikar2,
  4. Mickey Chong3,
  5. Anita Mittal4,
  6. Logan Manikam5,
  7. Peter John Rose2
  1. 1 School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  2. 2 Department of Paediatrics, Peterborough City Hospital, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, UK
  3. 3 UCL Medical School, London, UK
  4. 4 Department of Paediatrics, Bedford Hospital, Bedford, UK
  5. 5 Population, Policy and Practice, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Dilshad Marikar, Department of Paediatrics, Peterborough City Hospital, Edith Cavell Campus, Bretton Gate, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire PE3 9GZ, UK; dilshad.marikar{at}nhs.net

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Neonatal hypoglycaemia is common; however, there is an ongoing controversy regarding its operational definition, with recent guidance from the Paediatric Endocrine Society (PES) recommending using significantly higher blood glucose thresholds and longer periods of monitoring than existing guidance.1

A 2014 survey of Australasian neonatal units identified that the most common clinical threshold for the treatment of hypoglycaemia was 2.6 mmol/L, and some units used potentially unreliable nearside blood glucose monitoring devices.2 The most recent published survey of British neonatologists showed wide variation in definitions of neonatal hypoglycaemia from <1 to <4 mmol/L.3

We surveyed neonatal units in England to assess current working practice on the definition and monitoring of neonatal hypoglycaemia.

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Footnotes

  • Contributors KCD, RLF and DM are joint first authors. DM and AM designed the study and methodology. KCD, RLF, MC and DM conducted the survey. KCD, RLF and DM analysed the data. All authors wrote, edited or approved the final submitted report. DM is the guarantor.

  • Competing interests None.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

  • Data sharing statement The corresponding author DM is happy to provide copies of the survey data in anonymised form to interested parties.