Newborn jaundice for 4 weeks

[Waterfall2]

Has anyone newborn had jaundice since birth and lasting over 4 weeks? My little girl was born at 37 weeks almost 4 weeks ago. She was diagnosed with jaundice with 24 hours of labour and we spent a week in hospital getting 4 days of phototherapy. She's home now, feeding well, lots of wet and dirty nappies, gaining weight really well, sleeps ok and has periods awake and taking in the world and points of lots of crying. But I've now been googling jaundice and now terrified myself with the worse case scenario of high jaundice levels. I think I'm just being a paranoid first time mum but I'd really like to hear if anyone else has had prolonged jaundice and what happened.

[jessyjessy572]

Are you sure she still have it ? My boy had it for quite some time but at the end I was not sure if he still has it and only when visiting health visitor she confided he was clear. They always told me as long as he eats well and lots of wet nappies it is all ok. The fact that she is crying doesn’t always mean something is wrong some babies (mine included lucky me) just cry a lot. If you worries you can always visit children centre and get health visitor to have a look at her for peace of mind. Xxx

[Waterfall2 in reply to jessyjessy572]

Thanks for your reply. She is still pretty yellow so pretty sure she still has jaundice. The health visitor has been happy with her so far and we are having her levels checked next week. But I just googled and found a few articles about the possible brain damage and now worried myself into a panic.

[jessyjessy572 in reply to Waterfall2]

Don’t as great as google can be to find answers it can also create confusion. Trust me if there would be any chance for any damage or harm for the baby they will not made you to wait until next week to check her levels, and you would have a signs that something is wrong like not feeling or sleeping all the time etc. I know if it easy said as I completely understand that when it comes to your baby you are externally worried about everything but try to stay positive. If you are so worried give HV call on Monday and tell her about your worries so she can advise more. Xxx

[Waterfall2 in reply to jessyjessy572]

Thank you. I'm just so paranoid I shouldn't Google but can't help it. I will call the health visitor tomorrow and see if we can have her levels checked sooner. Thanks again. Hope your little boy is doing well.

[Cheekymonkey85]

How are you feeding him? My son had it for 6 weeks. I went to the gp because everything I read suggested it lasted approx. 3 weeks. There's little a gp can do so he sent us up to the hospital the next day (straight to the children's ward day centre) to get checked out. After 6 hours waiting on blood results the consultant said levels were perfectly fine & called it breast milk jaundice x

[Waterfall2 in reply to Cheekymonkey85]

I am breast feeding, and the health visitor said that might make it last longer. But I'm just worried as her levels where high in the first instance, enough to need phototherapy. They'd gone down when they let us out of hospital and I thought it would go away but it's just lingering.

Glad everything was ok with your wee boy.

[Cheekymonkey85 in reply to Waterfall2]

Sometimes doctors don't really understand it & phototherapy can be a knee jerk reaction (from what I've seen amongst friends etc). Some doctors will encourage formula feeding to get rid etc.

My partners colleagues baby was born 2 months before mine, & he had jaundice. The hospital wanted to do phototherapy with him but they decided against it & just did everything else we are advised to do, like keep feeding & place under sunny window etc. He cleared up fine & is perfectly healthy.

It's more common than we realise, especially in breastfed babies

What we read can be worse case scenarios, and if the hospital didn't think all was well they wouldn't have discharged him xx

[Waterfall2 in reply to Cheekymonkey85]

I never realised how common it was and all the medical staff have said it's really nothing to worry about. I have to keep telling myself that and stay away from Google. Thanks for the reassurance. XX

[Hidden]

My son was born 5lbs 3oz at 37 weeks and was quite jaundice, we had a few days of being in hospital, with double light therapy etc .... He was still quite yellow for a while including like the white of his eyes, but he was fine, and is fine now, he's 5 month and sitting up, trying to crawl- absolutely nothing wrong with him. If you're concerned there's something wrong go and see your GP xx

[Waterfall2 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you. Glad your wee boy is doing so well. I think I'm just being paranoid but I'll check in with my GP just to try and put my mind at ease.

[Amandaholland85]

Hi Waterfall

My little girl is 18 weeks old now and she had jaundice till she was 6/7 weeks old ivry time they put the machine on hur and the numbers where low and it would go away i keep hur in as much day light as possible but she was niver yellow she looked like she was just bk from holiday she was red / brown the only bit that was yellow was hur eyes she is still red / brown now but no jaundice she was born with lots of red blood cells at the top of her skin and its nothing to worry about but if she is sick she gos gray i would say if your worrying about it ask you HV the best person to ask if they are wored thay will send you the the doctor or maternity or A&E. All the best xx

[Waterfall2 in reply to Amandaholland85]

It's been reassuring to hear other people have had jaundice linger longer and glad it's all good with your little girl now. Thanks xx

[Hidden in reply to Amandaholland85]

My little boy was the same; he looked like he had a sun tan it was just the whites of his eyes that looked yellow

[Hidden]

It took a few weeks for my boy’s body to process all the bilirubin; it felt like his eyes had a yellow tinge for ages and then one day it was gone. The health visitor was happy as long as baby was feeding well, producing wet and dirty nappies etc as that was the sign all was heading in the right direction.

I understand your worry though. When our boy was 10 days old the health visitor asked us to take him back to hospital for a blood test to check his jaundice. At the hospital the consultant who saw him did a preliminary heel prick test, twice. Both times the only reading that didn’t show up was the bilirubin levels. In a throw away comment she said ‘it might be his levels are so high the machine can’t read it’! Cue the scariest hour and a half wait of our life for the full blood test result. Meanwhile my other half had googled about jaundice and put the fear of god in himself!

Our baby was fine (thank goodness); on reflection everything about his presentation (apart from the enduring yellow) suggested this was the case too. But the thoughtless doctor and google managed to terrify us.

[Waterfall2 in reply to Hidden]

I'm glad everything was ok. What a thing for the doctor to say! But Google is the worse for terrifying people.

[Barvaz1978]

Did u have her bilirubin checked? It may be a liver issue