PREGNANCY-BIRTH Messages for October, 2000: Re: Jaundice

Re: Jaundice

From: AMD

anonymous@obgyn.net

Wed, 25 Oct 2000 17:44:02 -0500 (CDT)

Jaundice is fairly common in newborns during the first couple weeks of life. It sometimes takes a while for the baby's liver to catch up to the new demand put on it after birth, and the baby ends up with excess bilirubin in his blood. This is normal physiologic jaundice that is pretty common. And anything that adds to the red blood cell load on the liver can increase this normal jaundice. For example, heavy bruising from a difficult delivery can make a baby at higher risk for jaundice. Also, I think breastfed babies tend to have higher levels or this "normal" jaundice than other infants. In most cases, the level of bilirubin stays in the safe range and the baby's liver catches up and the color goes back to normal and everyone is happy. However, I would think 2 weeks (if the baby was a healthy full-term baby) is getting a little old for the bili levels to be high enough to be worrisome.

Sometimes though, the level of bilirubin gets too high and the baby needs to be treated. Treatment of moderately high bilirubin is usually phototherapy, where the naked baby is placed under lights or wrapped in a "bili blanket" that emits certain wavelengths of light. The light is absorbed through the skin and helps break down the bilirubin so it can be excreted in the urine and stool. Many doctors will recommend allowing the baby to sleep in a sunny window to simulate this effect. If the bilirubin is really, really high, a blood transfusion may be considered, but they will probably try to avoid this in a baby whose cord has dried up or fallen off.

Very rarely, there are pathological conditions in the baby that lead to very high bilirubin levels. I would guess the most common is RH incompatibility between the mother and baby, which leads to excessive red-blood-cell destruction, which leads to high bilirubin and anemia in the baby. Blood type incompatibility can cause a similar effect, but usually on a smaller scale that is not serious.

The important thing is that the doctor's have identified the jaundice and are looking into what may be causing it and making sure the baby gets treated.

I imagine if you did a web search of newborn jaundice, you would find more information than you ever wanted.

I've been there with both my boys, and all was well. It just made for a lot of extra stress the first couple weeks.

Good luck to your sis and her baby!!

Andrea

At Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Trina wrote: >
>My sister has a newborn baby... Just a couple weeks old. She wrote me
>tonight and said that the dr told her a couple days ago that the baby
>has jaundice. Today, his office calls and tells her to bring him back
>in because there was so much jaundice they need to see him again.
>What in the world could be causing this?????

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