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Disturbances of glucose homeostasis are a common clinical problem in low birth weight human infants. Previous studies have demonstrated that the intra-uterine growth-retarded piglet is a suitable animal model for the study of such problems. The effects of an intravenous glucose infusion on glucose homeostasis have been studied in normal and intrauterine growth-retarded neonatal piglets using a non-steady state tracer technique. Despite suppression of hepatic glucose output, hyperglycaemia (plasma glucose greater than 10.0 mmol/l) developed in the majority of animals. The hyperglycaemia resulted from a failure to increase glucose utilisation adequately in response to the glucose infusion. Growth-retarded animals had an impaired ability to increase their rate of glucose utilisation, although, in common with the normally grown animals, they demonstrated a graded response to different infusion rates of glucose.