Princess Janelle - Jaundice

What is Jaundice? Jaundice means the yellow appearance of the skin and whites of the eyes that occurs when the blood contains an excess of the pigment called bilirubin. Physiologic jaundice is a fairly normal newborn occurrence. You will usually see this between days two and five of your new baby's life. Typically it presents as a yellowish tinge to your baby's skin and eyes. Some babies may also be very sleepy and/or have feeding difficulties. Jaundice is caused by the inability of the baby's immature liver to break down red blood cells, leading to an increase in the levels of bilirubin in the baby's blood. This is fairly normal occurrence. To help speed up the process, you should be sure that your baby is taking in plenty of fluids, preferably breast milk. Breast milk is a laxitive, helping to move the meconium from your baby's bowels. This can help lessen the incidence of jaundice or decrease the amount of time that you deal with jaundice.

And due to this Jaundice my little princess could not discharge from hospital as her jaundice rate is quite high. So she is put under the phototheraphy lights. After staying 2 nights in hospital we are allow to go home. Finally, on Tuesday we are goin home. But then Dr Yong ask us to come back for appointment as he worried that Janelle's condition might change. So we made an appointment on Friday.

After the blood test, the result show that the jaundice rate has gone up from 128 to 218. Dr Yong suggest we rent the home phototheraphy lights for Janelle. She dislike to be put under lights as she have to be naked and only with nappy on. I guess she feel insecure without clothes on.

Hubby so "sam tung' to see his little princess suffer, as Janelle cried once she is put under lights. Poor baby :'(