Neonatal Diabetes

Many people get confused about type 1, juvenile onset diabetes, and think that it is something you are born with. Autoimmune diabetes is not present at birth; it takes a little time to develop. It is almost never diagnosed in babies under six months, although about half of people who develop diabetes antibodies have them by the age of five years.

However, a few more than two babies per million are born diabetic, in that they are born with something affecting their ability to make insulin, and will be diagnosed with diabetes usually within the month and certainly within the year. There are many causes of neonatal diabetes. About half of cases of neonatal diabetes are transient- they go away on their own, and may or may not come back later- and about half are permanent.
Most forms of neonatal diabetes can only be treated with insulin, but those with a group of related forms of permanent neonatal diabetes may be treated with oral medications.


I see a bunch of parents writing about their non-diabetic children with diabetic siblings and I wrote a bit about my own experiences as a sibling to brothers with special needs and then about my brothers and then I thought, nah, that's bogus. Let's hear what they say. So, I promise, I will ask my youngest two brothers what they think about having a diabetic sibling. My guess is that they will say I talk about it too much, but we will see.

P.S. Sorry for the original title- I started writing a different post and realized I was running out of time to finish it.