Blood Chemistry of the New-Born

Abstract

In reviewing the literature on the blood chemistry of the new-born, it was found that there were only sporadic data on the chemistry during the first few days of life and none of a comparative nature on the first, third and fifth days. Although a great deal of work has been carried out on certain selected constituents of the blood during inanition fever, such as studies on blood concentration and chlorids, no systematic comparison is available between normal new-born infants and inanition cases. In 1922, we presented a preliminary report on the blood chemistry of the new-born ; this paper is a detailed and extended account of the comparison of the blood chemistry of the normal new-born and those suffering from inanition fever. EXPERIMENTAL PARTClinically healthy babies were chosen for the data on normal infants, precautions having been taken that these infants had sufficient fluid and food intake. Only those having a rectal temperature between 97.0 and 99.5 F. and those who showed no abnormal loss in body weight were considered normal. The values for the first day were on cord blood while the data on the third and fifth days were obtained from the fontanel.In the fever cases the babies were deprived of all supplemental fluid intake, receiving only a limited supply of milk from the breasts. Samples were taken on the third and fifth days if a temperature higher than 100 F. had been attained.Standard methods of analysis were employed, using the Folin and Wu filtrate for amino-acids, sugar and chlorids. Urea was determined on the whole blood and carbon dioxid by the method of Van Slyke. Water was determined by drying a weighed sample of oxalated blood at 75 to 80 C.