Jaundice In Babies

Photo by Jenean Newcomb on Unsplash

As parents or to be a parents is itself a great journey of life. On top of this if a family is expecting a bundle of joy entering to fulfill their happiness then it is again an amazing thing. In this blog I have shared how a newborn baby goes through a jaundice phase or how babies are strong to deal with such an unexpected phase at an early age. Newborn jaundice occurs, in those babies who born before the gestational period. i.e. pre- delivery date or we can say before due date rather in some cases it happens even when baby is fully matured.

Here we will discuss about the indications, that shows your baby is suffering from jaundice as well as we will be discussing how to overcome.

Symptoms are as follows :

• Eyes become yellow in colour.
• Babies become lethargic and sleepy all times.
• Refrain from taking feeds.
• Urine colour is yellow. (as normally urine is colourless in healthy babies)
• Passing pale stool that could be greenish or mustard yellow.

Reason behind jaundice is the range of bilirubin level in blood presence are more than their available range. It can be categorized as direct and indirect bilirubin level. This happens since babies are at developing stage else we can say that there systems are not fully developed and for bilirubin, liver plays an extreme role. As it helps to extracts the bilirubin from human body as  the liver of adults and young children are matured.

Identification :

Jaundice in new born are common in today’s life and this is diagnosed within 3 -5 days of baby born by checking their eyes or skin whether it is yellow than the behavior of baby matters a lot. Even whether baby is taking feed regularly since the jaundice level can decrease through continue breastfeeding. However in some cases it becomes little tough to identify, hence in this case babies are recommended for skin test or blood test.

In severe cases blood test is recommended and on that doctor provides prescription.

Treatment :

Jaundice can be treated through photo therapy which generally doctors recommend here there will one machine where the light is blue and babies are only permitted to cover their private parts. This almost take two days and mother as well need to visit since she had to feed the baby.

This can be as well as treated through sunlight as sunlight works wonders and this can be given early morning around 7-8am. There are ultraviolet rays which can harm babies so their skin have to cover with muslin cotton cloth. The babies should be kept at least 20-30mins under sunlight for a month.

Sometimes there are severe cases where the bilirubin level does not fall hence during this stage blood transfusion is performed.

The other way of treating is continuously breastfeeding for almost 8-10 times a day within 2 hours of interval. Doctors too suggest multivitamins drops to recover soon and to be given on regular basis as instructed.

During this phase even the parents need morale support as they are already worried about baby’s health. Here family plays an important role as they are the one who can provide better meal to the mother as she need to feed her baby with proper required nutrients so to recover from jaundice.

Hope this article helps a new mom or mom to be to understand her child situation and to act upon in a patience manner.

Kindly share your comments or suggestions to know more. Do share more as it motivates!

Poonam has done graduation in commerce and she was working as a customer care in automotive industry for almost 7 years. However, being mother of two amazing kids, she is know pursuing the full-time job of motherhood and is a wonderful homemaker.