Baby has jaundice due to ABO incompatibility

[HLouise94]

I wondered if anybody has had experience of their baby being jaundice due to the ABO incompatibility? My baby is currently 1 week old and for the first few days her bloods were tracking just below the treatment line. On Friday they tipped above and we went back into hospital for her to have phototherapy. She then came home and had a biliblanket for a couple of days. Her levels are now well below the treatment line but I am worried that now that the treatment has stopped her bilirubin levels will creep back up again. I’m a very anxious mum due to a term still birth last year and I am constantly worried that something might go wrong. If anybody could share their experience of this or something similar I’d really appreciate it!

I had this with DC3 (in retrospect I think also with DC 1 and 2 actually). It was horrible at the time, mainly because they were too sleepy to feed and the constant pressure from being weighed all the time and blamed for not feeding them enough was horrible, I was shoving a bottle in their mouths every time they opened their eyes and pinching their toes so they didn’t fall asleep drinking it :-( once we were signed off as having gained enough weight it was all much better and never looked back. The kids are primary age now and definitely no lasting effects.

If I understood correctly, it is very unlikely their bill levels would go back up as the cause for it is antibodies transferred from mother to child before birth. But if like me you are still being seen by midwives, you could ask the midwife to check with that pen-like sensor they shine on the baby’s chest.

i found a lot of people hadn’t heard of ABO incompatibility, although it is apparently one of the most common causes of jaundice, so I’d suggest hanging on to any leaflets etc you have in case you find your midwife/health visitor seems not to know about it!