Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association
April 13, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Outcomes of extremely preterm infants with neonatal hyperglycemia and hypernatremia: a retrospective cohort study.
Fursule A, Athalye-Jape G, Deepak D, Muthusamy S, Patole S, Panchal H, Rao S, Rath C.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
Early hypernatraemia and hyperglycaemia in the first postnatal week were not associated with adverse neurodevelopment at 2 years in extremely preterm infants.
What was studied
A single-centre retrospective cohort of 748 extremely preterm infants, 374 with hypernatraemia (sodium above 145 mmol/L) and/or hyperglycaemia (glucose above 10 mmol/L) within days 0-7 and 374 matched controls without either, with adverse neurodevelopmental outcome at 2 years corrected age as the primary outcome.
Key findings
- 748 extremely preterm infants: 374 with hypernatraemia and/or hyperglycaemia and 374 controls
- On adjusted analysis, hypernatraemia, hyperglycaemia and the combination were not associated with moderate-to-severe developmental impairment
- The moderate-to-severe hypernatraemia group showed LOWER odds of impairment than controls (18.3% vs 21.5%; adjusted OR 0.39, 95% CI 0.15-0.99, p=0.047)
Clinical relevance
This is reassuring that early electrolyte and glucose derangements in extremely preterm infants do not independently predict 2-year developmental impairment; the apparently protective effect of moderate-to-severe hypernatraemia is almost certainly a statistical artefact rather than a real finding and should not be interpreted substantively.
Who should care
Limitations
Retrospective single-centre cohort with a borderline and biologically implausible protective association for severe hypernatraemia (CI upper bound 0.99), outcomes at only 2 years, and likely survivor bias since the sickest infants may not have reached follow-up.
Early high sodium or glucose in an extremely preterm baby does not appear to spell developmental trouble at two years.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Objective
To assess whether early hypernatremia (HN) and/or hyperglycemia (HG) in the first postnatal week are associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in extremely preterm (EP; <28 weeks) infants.
Study design
This was a single-center retrospective cohort study. HN is defined as serum sodium > 145 mmol/L and HG as blood glucose > 10 mmol/L within days 0-7. Infants were classified into HN, HG, or combined HN + HG groups; EP infants without HN/HG served as controls. This study included 748 EP infants: 374 with HN and/or HG and 374 controls. The primary outcome was an adverse neurodevelopmental outcome at 2 years' corrected age.
Results
On adjusted analyses, HN, HG and HN + HG were not associated with moderate-to-severe developmental impairment. Moderate-to-severe HN group showed a lower odds of moderate-to-severe developmental impairment than controls (18.3% vs 21.5%; adjusted OR 0.39, 95% CI 0.15-0.99; p = 0.047).
Conclusions
Early hypernatremia and/or hyperglycemia were not associated with adverse neurodevelopment at 2 years' corrected age.
DOI
10.1038/s41372-026-02683-0
PMID
41975202
PMCID
PMC13588747
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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