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HYPOCALCAEMIA IN INFANCY: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY
Author(s) -
KNUCKEY T.,
O'HALLORAN M. T.,
YU J. S.
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
journal of paediatrics and child health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.631
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1440-1754
pISSN - 1034-4810
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1754.1971.tb01054.x
Subject(s) - hypocalcaemia , medicine , rickets , pediatrics , vitamin d and neurology , vitamin d deficiency , calcium
SYNOPSIS The clinical features of 36 infants who presented with hypocalcaemia in the first 2 years of life are reviewed and their subsequent progress studied. Males outnumbered females 28:8. While a low serum calcium level is physiological and common in preterm infants, symptomatic hypocalcaemia is seen much more frequently in bigger babies. Hypocalcaemia in the neonatal period is nearly always a transient phenomenon. Vitamin D deficiency rickets was surprisingly common, occurring in 9 of the 36 infants. Most of these children were from migrant families and this emphasises the particular needs of these people in our community health programmes. Even when convulsions occurred, the hypocalcaemia had remarkably little adverse effect on future intellectual development. The children with rickets, however, often showed other evidence of socio‐environmental deprivation, including poor intellectual performance.