Facts Behind Jaundice in Newborns
While this article isn’t from New Zealand, we thought that some parents might find this recent article useful in understanding jaundice.
Jaundice is one of the commonest reasons parents visit Paediatricians. It refers to the yellow colouration of the skin and the white of the eye (sclera) caused by the accumulation of a yellow pigment called “bilirubin” in the skin and mucus membranes. It is normal for everyone to have low levels of bilirubin in their blood. Jaundice has many causes and we are sure everyone will know liver infection like hepatitis causes jaundice. But babies are peculiar in that so they get jaundice for various normal reasons – hence it is called PHYSIOLOGICAL jaundice.
Approximatley 60 percent of full-term and 80 percent of premature babies develop jaundice in the first week of life, and in most of the babies with jaundice there is no underlying disease, and this early jaundice (termed ‘physiologcial jaundice’) is generally harmless.
Read the full article here
Thanks so much for sharing your personal story!
We get a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read these stories and feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions.
If you would like to discuss sharing the story of your neonatal journey, we’d love to hear from you.
Support Us
If you want to help our support of families going through the stress and anxiety of a neonatal journey, you can donate via the link below.
- The Little Miracles Trust provides support to families of premature or sick full-term babies as they make their journey through Neonatal Intensive Care, the transition home, and onwards. We do not receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generosity of individuals, companies and organisations in the form of donations, value-in-kind donations, grants, sponsorship and fundraising events to supplement operating costs and fund our services and initiatives.
- As we are a registered charity (CC56619) with Charities Services New Zealand we will send you an IRD compliant tax receipt – this will happen automatically by return email.