Worried about my baby

frenchbird said:

I have had type 1 diabetes for 13 years. I gave birth last September to a beautiful baby girl. She clearly had suffered from my condition whilst in the womb, as she was born 4 weeks early and weighed 9 pounds 6 ounces. Her sugar level was very low and she was kept in the antenatal unit for a few days. Since then we have had no problems.
However, today, after a Skype conversation with my mum where she remarked that my baby was drinking a lot, I started worrying that it might be diabetes. I checked her blood sugar straight after her meal and started panicking when I saw it was 9.6 on my monitor. I tested again with a new (hopefully more accurate?) monitor and this time it was 7.8. It still seems a bit high to me for a non-diabetic, even though I found online that sugar level in non-diabetics could briefly rise to that level after a meal.
I am seeing the health visitor for the one- year review on Friday and thought I would mention it then. I don't want to panic but I'm still very worried. Could anybody tell me if 7.8 after a meal is OK for a baby?

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Hello and welcome frenchbird, so sorry to hear of your concerns regarding your little baby. If it was my baby I wouldn't wait until Friday I would make an appointment with my GP first thing tomorrow morning. Baby may just be under the weather with a cold or slight infection coming to the surface, but its not worth waiting with such a young child. Its best to get her checked out. I really don't know the blood sugar ranges in very young children, so not much help I'm afraid. Try not to worry too much, I know its very hard. Take care RRB please let us know how you get on.

hi there and welcome to the site. Hope you find some answers about your little girl soon. please come back and tell us how you get on.

Hi,

There is another thread on this subject about 'normal blood sugars in a 17 month old' - have a look there.

Basically, I had the same worry and tested my son's blood and got a 13 mmol/mm. It came down pretty quickly but nevertheless that seemed to be positive diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. I was wrong; my son is fine. Apparently infant blood sugars vary quite a lot, the best way of testing is for glucose in urine; if there is then that is a strong sign that your daughter has problems. If not then everything is fine. Also, it is 'summer' so your daughter is going to be hotter and will be drinking more!

Here is some more of what I posted in the other thread;

As Type 1 diabetics we have a higher chance of our children having Type 1 diabetes- this is a discussion on just that (discussing rates in the US, but I would assume the risks are pretty similar here). Note that it says "if the mother has type 1 diabetes and is age 25 or younger when the child is born, the risk is reduced to 1 in 25 (4 percent) and if the mother is over age 25, the risk drops to 1 in 100 — virtually the same as the average American."

http://www.joslin.org/info/genetics_and_diabetes.html

As to the vitamin d thing I'm a firm believer in this; you can redress the odds by giving vitamin d3; here is a link to a study discussing this.

http://housemajority.org/seaton/pdfs/27/5448201.pdf

Note that it says 'In children who received vitamin D supplementation regularly, the risk [of developing Type 1 diabetes] was reduced by about 80% if the child had received at least the recommended dose compared with those receiving less.'

My underlining and bold.

The amount of vitamin d the children (from birth onwards) were given in the study was 2000 IU daily. The RDA in the UK is 400 IU for adults and 200 IU for children. I give my 3 1/2 year old 2000 IU a day and my 1 year old 1000 IU a day - he'll go up to full dose when he's 2 - there's no real reason other than parental caution as to why he isn't on the full 2000 IU's now though.

The vitamin d you want, by the way, is vitamin d3 in drop form - I buy mine from the US as bizarrely it's cheaper to do that than buy here. Drop me a line if you want more info.

Some people feel that vitamin supplementation is all a con and a way to extract more money from us, but I figure if there is evidence like that and the known toxicity levels for vitamin d are about 20,000 - 50,000 IU for several days then why on earth not? I discussed this with a GP friend of mine and he responded by putting all his children on vitamin d supplements!

In any event the NHS says that the under 5's are meant to be on vitamin d supplementation anyway; but I've never ever heard that from anyone at the NHS...

I hope however that this is all a false alarm and your daughter is fine.

All the best

Dillinger

I wouldn't wait if I were worried abut a baby. I'm a grandmother now and I'm glad I fought the doctor's receptionist more than once
Hana

That's great news!! :clap: :clap:

I'm so glad that she's been given the all clear. It's always best to get things checked though if your worried about something.

Ann

Ann19 said:

That's great news!! :clap: :clap:

I'm so glad that she's been given the all clear. It's always best to get things checked though if your worried about something.

Ann

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:thumbup: So pleased as well. RRB