Spotting a Low in a Baby
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
This is the skill every parent of a baby with diabetes needs most, and it is harder than it is in an older child because the signs are so ordinary.
What a low can look like in an infant:
- Jitteriness or tremors — small shaky movements of the limbs.
- Poor feeding, or difficulty sucking.
- Unusual sleepiness, or being hard to rouse.
- Irritability that does not settle with the usual comforting.
- A weak or unusually high-pitched cry.
- Sweating, or skin that looks pale or blotchy.
- Feeling floppy, or unusually cool to touch.
- Fast, grunting or pausing breathing.
- In severe cases, seizures or unresponsiveness.
Two things about this list are important. Every one of these also occurs in perfectly well babies, which is exactly why lows are missed. And how a baby looks does not reliably track how low the glucose actually is — a baby can be very low and look almost normal.
Seizures, unresponsiveness, or breathing that stops and starts are emergencies — treat and call for help at the same time, as described in severe lows.
Over time you will learn your own baby's particular version of this. Most parents describe one specific thing — a certain cry, a certain stillness — that becomes their reliable signal.