August 26, 2009

Jaundice update

We went to Yan Yan's paediatrician on yesterday for the second dose of her hepatitis B vaccination. She's still slightly jaundiced and her paediatrician said that it's most likely breastmilk jaundice. He asked us the colour of her stools (which is mustard yellow) and urine (slight yellowish tinge) to which he said are normal. Anyway, he wanted us to collect a sample of her urine for him to assess for colour, but right after her injection, and before we could put her diapers back on, Yan Yan passed urine for him to see. Smart girl, she wanted to save her parents another trip to the hospital :-)

Upon seeing the colour of her urine, he assured us that there's nothing to worry about, and that he'd only be worried if her poo is whitish and her urine dark brown. Anyway, if she still appears yellowish in two weeks time, we'll have to bring her back for blood test. And he warned us that the blood test would be more traumatizing compared to the few earlier ones as more blood needs to be drawn out. This, and few other websites mention that breastmilk jaundice is normal and quite harmless, so I'm not really sure if there's a need for the blood test. But I guess we'll still bring her for the blood test as advised, but I certainly hope that her jaundice will resolve by then.

10 comments:

2ma said...

yan yan is indeed smart *hehe* i hope yan yan's jaundice will go away soon

Ms. W said...

thank you for this. now i know why my son's jaundice wouldnt go away when i was breastfeeding him. as soon as he was fed with formula milk the jaundice's gone. i failed to breastfeed him long. i couldnt stand the pain. i have inverted nipple. it was hard work for both of us. i had plenty of milk n he latched on correctly according to a lactation consultant (three times she assured me as she watched me brestfed). but my nipples were severely cracked n my milk never stopped dripping because of it. i congratulate you =)

Liew said...

oh dear. hope she will be free of jaundice by then

two pixels photography said...

hope she's ok.

A Mom's Diary said...

2ma/WK - yeah, we hope her jaundice will go away soon too.

Ms W - sorry to hear about your breastfeeding condition. If you have another baby in future and plan to breastfeed, there's something called a nipple former to help mums with inverted nipples.

Jazz - she's actually growing well and is healthy, just that she still appears slightly yellowish.

BoeyJoey said...

Yeah, like you say, it's nothing too serious, if not the pead would have been be worried.

The old folks do advise bringing out jaundiced babies to be "sunned" lightly under the morning sun (for production of vitamin D)... try it...

Chinneeq said...

my twin babies are also quite yellow. pead at the private hospital asked us back to do blood test, which i personally think is not necessary...sigh..although they might sound they wanna be safe, but i still think they wanna make money :(

Kelly said...

My mom exposed my son who have had mild neonatal jaundice to indirect sunlight in the early morning and late evening. The jaundice went away completely after 1 week but do not put her under direct sunlight as this can cause sunburn on her highly sensitive skin.

A Mom's Diary said...

Boey Joey/Kelly - when she had jaundice in the first few days, we rented the home phototherapy machine. Then after we returned the machine, we did sun her for several days. Now it has evolved to become breastmilk jaundice :-(

A Mom's Diary said...

Chinnee - I think in our case, the paed really just wanna make sure everything is OK, coz he's hubby's friend. He didn't charge us when we took Yan Yan to check on her bilirubin level the last few times. But of course we had to pay the lab for the blood test.