Newborn jaundice

[abimumofone]

My 6 day old has jaundice. He has lost 12.4% weight. Midwife sent us to hospital yesterday. They did blood tests, bilirubin levels weren’t high enough for treatment but nearly. They advised topping up my breast milk every 3 hours. We decided to make the switch to formula exclusively. Baby is very sleepy today and we struggled to wake him for the last feed. Any advice? Has anyone else had this experience?

Breastmilk is easier to digest and has more easily digestible fats, my advise would be to switch back to bf, skin to skin in a wrap or sling to aid frequent feeding and aim to feed every 1.5-2 hours.

Make sure you have baby in front of the biggest brightest window in the house all day if you're not out.they need as much light on their skin as possible to get rid of the jaundice.

My son had this (they used to keep you in hospital in those days ) he had to go in an incubator with an eye mask.
Make sure he is feeding, mine had formula, every 2.5/3 hours.
If no better go back to a&e don’t be fobbed off.

My son is 33 now and fit as a butcher’s dog.

The sunlight myth is really quite an unhelpful one, the amount of UV light that would be necessary to aid the breakdown of billirubin is far more than can be gotten from sitting at a double glazed window even if done for hours.

Bilirubin needs to be bound to ions and then excreted by the body in waste products, in order to do this baby needs a regular intake of easily digestible breastmilk.

If you’ve struggled to wake him today for feeds, ring the hospital to get him checked out.

My 5 day old has mild jaundice. We were told if he stops waking to feed to call the delivery ward without hesitation so I'd do that. I'm bf-ing every 2 hours and his levels were much improved today.

My DS2 has similar levels of jaundice and weight loss to your little one last year. We had to go every 8 hrs for a level check but since you've said you've struggled waking them / sleep I'd call someone and have them seen.

It took about 3 months for my littles jaundice to clear completely

Both of my DD were born at 37+2 and 37+1, and had jaundice, DD1 required phototherapy in hospital for a week, DD2 required fairly constant bf for five days.

Keep trying to get as much milk into your baby as you can - just continually top them up. If getting too sleepy to feed, remove outer layer of clothing to wake them up then cuddle close for a feed and redress once fed, or tickle their feed/rub ears. You have to keep getting milk in.

If still sleepy, seek assistance on the post natal ward if under ten days old.

Good luck, you can conquer this!

If he’s difficult to wake you must ring the hospital ASAP.

Hi thanks for all your replies. We rang hospital and they said to keep going until 10 tonight and if he won’t wake to feed in that time at all then to call back

The challenge is that jaundice makes them sleepy but they need to wake to feed. Breastmilk helps eradicate jaundice faster than formula, so it may be worth breastfeeding with top ups whilst you get through this stage. Have they shown you the chart of the bilirubin levels vs treatment levels? How close was it to the treatment level for lights?
Note that bilirubin also rises after birth but would be expected to start dropping by day 4. Have they agreed to test levels again tomorrow?

We had to stay in for phototherapy, initially 48 hours but were released and readmitted twice due to DS being jaundiced. We had to feed 2 hourly religiously whilst on treatment and in the weeks following. He would do 12 hours under light then levels retested.
If your struggling to wake and feed maybe best asking for further advice x

My DC had newborn jaundice severe enough to need the phototherapy treatment.

If your DC is so sleepy that you’ve struggled to wake him for feeds, I’d call the hospital for advice. Babies need to be feeding properly to get rid of the jaundice.

We used to undress DC and do a nappy change straight before a feed, to wake them, and then do the feed with just the nappy on to try and make sure they stayed awake for the full feed.

Also, about the switch to formula - my younger 2 DC were both too sleepy to breastfeed because of the jaundice initially, so they had formula top ups (the hospital let me use a breast pump to keep my breast milk supply up), but once the jaundice had been treated and they were more alert, they took really well to breastfeeding and both breastfed till past their 2nd birthday.
So if breastfeeding was something you wanted to do, some formula top ups now don’t necessarily mean that breastfeeding won’t work once baby has recovered from the jaundice.

DS2 had jaundice and we were readmitted on day 3 with 12% weight loss. DS2 was v sleepy and getting him to eat was really hard (subsequently transpired he also had a very severe posterior tongue tie which was making it impossible for him to latch).

He was under the lights for 12 hours and then his levels dropped enough for us to go home. I was pumping and feeding expressed milk but due to TT we didn't get good weight gain until after the TT was divided (the week after the divide he put on a pound!)

You could try expressing if baby needs top ups and you wanted to persevere with BF? I would feed baby and then express while DH gave DS the milk I'd expressed at the previous feed.

DS's jaundice didn't settle until he was about 8 or 9 weeks. We were checked at the hospital and his levels were ok just took a long time for him to stop looking yellow!

I would trust your instincts. If you can't wake him and you're worried then take him back in. Try stripping him off and changing his nappy to wake him up a bit and consider getting him checked for a tongue tie. Good luck and congratulations!