Neonatal jaundice

Mr Benevolent

My brother's two day old little girl has developed jaundice and is currently in an incubator undergoing light therapy from this afternoon until possibly Friday. She was also dehydrated due to slow milk delivery (breastfed). Naturally my brother and his fiance are very worried about her, as am I and the whole family. However, I get the impression that jaundice is quite common among newborns. Has anyone's baby had the same issue? How long did it that them to recover? Any reassurances are very useful. Wikipedia's good but experience is better!

Acoshla

Hiya,

I had jaundice when I was born (apparently I looked like I had a nice tan ), the hospital weren't at all worried about it, it's very common, it took about a week to right itself, with no side effects.

Moonbeam

Both my girls had it,my 2nd had it for 2 weeks.

Neither had treatment for it so it maybe more serious in your case,all you can do is talk to the doctors and nurses and ask.

wmpdd3

My little one was the same, they had to cup feed her for 24f hrs because she was dehydrated and then bottlefed when her blood sugar dropped. in the end my milk didnt come in as she was in the incubator for 3 days and didnt have time to learn to latch on. I was heart broken looking at her in her 'horribe box' until i met the women pumping milk for their babies in neo-natal. Puts things in perspective. By day 7 she was completly cured and is a thriving 6 month old now.

silja

My twins had it, I was told to breastfeed as much as possible, it increasaes milk production, and to go for walks with them outside so they can get the sun.

cynder

My fella got it at 2 days old, he was 5 weeks premature it took 6 weeks for the jaundice to leave him, he was never in the special care baby unit, he was let home on day 2 as he was healthy (7lb 6 oz)

However my brother was born 2 months early and was so badly jaundiced that he had to have a blood transfusion, now he is a fine healthy 35 year old.

Orion

One of my twins was born yellow and stayed that way for about 2 weeks. We were told not to worry and it went away itself.

Das Kitty

Our little man was a Simpson for a while, thankfully he didn't have to get any treatment. Stressful enough when they're all saying that he'll be kept in the hospital if it doesn't improve and you're doing your best to get the breastfeeding going.

KittyeeTrix

Hey Confab, my little girl had it when she was born prematurely but it disappeared after about a week and she was grand.

Here is a good reputable website containing some very good information about it:)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002526/

Mr Benevolent

Thanks all, she's home now and doing fine.