Delivery room glucose to reduce the risk of admission hypoglycemia in preterm infants: a systematic literature review

Aims: In order to mitigate early hypoglycemia in preterm infants, some clinicians have recently explored interventions such as delivery room commencement of dextrose infusions or delivery room administration of buccal dextrose gel. This review aimed to systematically investigate the literature regarding the provision of delivery room (prior to admission) parenteral glucose as a method to reduce the risk of initial hypoglycemia (measured at the time of NICU admission blood testing) in preterm infants.

Materials and methods: Using PRISMA guidelines a literature search (May 2022) was conducted using PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Library, OpenGrey, and Prospero databases. The clinicaltrials.gov database was searched for possible completed/ongoing clinical trials. Studies that included moderate preterm ($\le$33⁺⁶ weeks) or younger birth gestations or very low birth weight (or smaller) infants, and that administered parenteral glucose in the delivery room were included. The literature was appraised via data extraction, narrative synthesis, and critical review of the study data.

Results: A total of five studies (published 2014-2022) were eligible for inclusion (three before-after "quasi-experimental" studies, one retrospective cohort study, and one case-control study). Most included studies used intravenous dextrose as the intervention. Individual study effects (odds ratios) favored the intervention in all included studies. It was felt that the low number of studies, the variability in study design, and the nonadjustment for confounding co-interventions (co-exposures) precluded a meta-analysis. Quality assessment of the studies revealed a spectrum of bias from low to high risk, however, most studies had moderate to high risk of bias, and their direction of bias favored the intervention.

Conclusions: This extensive search and systematic appraisal of the literature indicates that there exists few studies (these are low grade and at moderate to high risk of bias) for the interventions of either intravenous or buccal dextrose given in the delivery room. It is not clear if these interventions impact on rates of early (NICU admission) hypoglycemia in these preterm infants. Obtaining intravenous access in the delivery room is not guaranteed and can be difficult in these small infants. Future research should consider various routes for commencing delivery room glucose in these preterm infants and should take the form of randomized controlled trials.