If Your Baby Goes into Remission

If your baby has the transient form of neonatal diabetes, the diabetes will settle. This is real, and it is the outcome most parents in this group are working towards.

It does not happen suddenly. Insulin requirements decline gradually as your baby's own pancreas begins to cope, and treatment is reduced in step. In the commonest transient form, the diabetes usually resolves by about three to six months of age, although it can last longer than a year — remission is generally expected by 18 months.

The reduction is managed by your team, guided by readings. Doses come down, then become intermittent, then stop. Nothing here is done at home on your own judgement.

What remission means, precisely, is that your child no longer needs treatment. It does not mean the condition is gone, and it does not mean the appointments stop.

Monitoring continues afterwards:

• Glucose tolerance testing is recommended for at least the first six to 24 months after remission.
• Growth is followed at every visit, at least every six months through childhood and adolescence.
• From around ages eight to ten, an annual HbA1c is recommended, and your child is told about the possibility of the diabetes returning.

The reason for all of that is the honest part of this diagnosis, and it deserves its own reading: the diabetes often comes back later.

None of which should take away from the relief. The injections stop, your baby eats and grows normally, and daily life becomes ordinary again.