Abstract
Little is known about the urinary calcium excretion in the neonate and especially in VLBW infants. Preliminary reports indicate that this excretion may be elevated if compared to other children; it may even be an important factor in the etiology of neonatal hypocalcemia. Every VLBW infant admitted to our NICU was divided into two groups, a control and a treatment group. Urinary Ca/Cr ratios were obtained within the first 24 hrs. and then every 48 hrs. in every infant; the treatment group received parenteral supplementation with Calcium Gluconate 100 mg/kg/day. We had 5 babies in the control group and 8 in the treatment group. The urinary Ca/Cr obtained in the first 24 hrs. in the treatment group was 0.060±0.008 compared to 0.023±0.010 in the control group, a non-significant difference. Even with this very low early urinary excretion of calcium, 64% of the infants developed hypocalcemia. This seems to indicate that urinary excretion of calcium has a limited role in neonatal hypocalcemia. All of the infants in the treatment group developed hypercalciuria by the second 100 hours of life (0.64±0.16) whereas the control group did not (0.15±0.05); urinary Ca/Cr ratios in excess of 0.25 were considered to represent hypercalciuria. The treatment group not only became hypercalciuric, but remained hypercalciuric throughout the study period. In contrast, the control group remained normo-calciuric during the 14 days of the study. According to our preliminary data, it seems that there is a close relationship between parenteral calcium therapy and urinary calcium excretion.
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Herrera, A., Harris, M. URINARY CALCIUM/CREATININE RATIO IN VERY LOW BIRTH WEIGHT INFANTS. Pediatr Res 18 (Suppl 4), 363 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198404001-01619
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198404001-01619