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Sweat Test For Babies



 Submitted by Medical Health Test Team on July 9, 2010
Sweat Testing For Babies

The human body produces sweat through sweat glands located all over the skin. Sweat is produced in order to cool the body down. This cooling occurs as a result of evaporation of the sweat from the skin’s surface. The body thus produces sweat in order to cool itself when it is faced with heat that is beyond the normal body temperature. Sweat is also unevenly distributed across the body depending on the heat in each area of the body. This is why people tend to sweat the most in their armpits and around the groin, because these are the areas that get hot and are not properly ventilated.

A sweat test is a medical diagnostic procedure that is used to analyze the sweat of an individual for its salt content. The ratio of sodium chloride to the quantity of sweat is a reflection of the salinity of the sweat. A person with an extremely elevated level of salt in their blood is likely to be afflicted with a condition known as cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a condition that causes the production of sweat to be abnormal. It is a result of a genetic defect that is passed down to an individual from one or both parents. It requires both pairs of genes responsible for the production of sweat to be abnormal. An individual with only one abnormal gene will probably not suffer from the condition. Cystic fibrosis is progressive and eventually leads to the death of the individual suffering from it. There is currently no known treatment for cystic fibrosis.

A sweat test for babies is conducted on a new born baby to understand whether that baby is affected by the condition of cystic fibrosis. If the baby is diagnosed with the condition, then steps could be taken to reduce the risks to the child and help prolong the child’s life. A sweat test for babies may be conducted as early as the 2nd day in the life of the baby. This is necessary because all possible precautions can then be taken to avoid infection and contamination around the baby who will be susceptible to these conditions because of the inherited cystic fibrosis. It must be noted that a baby with a positive sweat test must be retested later in life to confirm the diagnosis because the quantity and ratio of sweat in a baby tends to be different than in a young child or adult.

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