Prolonged jaundice/Bilirubin elevated levels

[Lozzak21]

Can anyone help or share their experience with me.

My son was born just before Xmas and we were home within 24 hrs. The midwife noticed he was jaundice at home visit and after 14 days it had not gone so we had the prolonged jaundice screening.

I have just recieved a call from hospital to say his bilirubin levels are 235 (apparently they like to see levels below 200). He has been booked for further bloods for a week after his initial bloods to see if they have gone down.

I have googled and worried myself in case the levels go up between now and then and the jaundice is untreated. He is still very yellow/tanned.

Anyone had similar levels or knowledgable in this field and explain this a bit better to me.

The lady on the phone didn't seem to be able to provide much clarity and/or indicate whether I should be concerned.

Many thanks

I’m bookmarking this to reply to you properly tomorrow - my DS was born with very bad jaundice and needed the light therapy treatment three times, the first time being 12 hours after he was born. He then had prolonged jaundice, short story is he is 6 months now and absolutely fine ☺️ It’s horribly worrying at the time. I’ll explain our story in full tomorrow x

@Lozzak21

All three of mine have had this. All absolutely fine within three months with no further treatments other than tests to ensure it wasn’t anything to worry about.
All three’s jaundice were put down to being breastfed.

My son was born at 35 weeks and had high levels for quite a while afterwards. In hospital he had the light treatment during the week he had to stay in hospital after birth then we were discharged but he had to go back for regular check ups and 2 further light treatment

Oh dear - posted too soon!

Further light treatments over the following weeks and.a further couple of days in hospital- he was yellow for quite a while. No underlying conditions or anything, just a perm birth and I had ICP in my pregnancy.

Now he's a healthy but crazy 10 year old!

Thank you so much for your replies. Can I ask what their levels were? If you can remember. I'm just unsure why light therapy isn't being suggested for my LO if his levels are high. Perhaps he doesn't quite meet the threshold but it would be interesting to know what the thresholds is..
The hospital haven't explained any of this to me so I'm a bit confused/worried

Mine all had this - extended breastfeeding jaundice. They all looked like little pumpkins. By the third I was very relaxed but found it stressful before that as the HV was stressed abs had us urgently in for tests - which were all fine

Is poo a normal colour (yellow)?

Get it checked out but extended breastfeeding Jaundice is common in breasted babies and some even think it’s protective for the brain!

Mine were winter babies too and I would leave them by the window to see if that helped a bit - not sure if it does

@Lozzak21 have they shown you where his levels are plotting on the chart? There is a chart used to determine whether treatment is necessary. There’s a line for the light therapy, and a line for the blood transfusion treatment, if he is under the line for light therapy, they won’t treat him. Ask to see the chart as may help you understand better why they are choosing not to treat. Also has it been explained to you why his levels may be raised? With my LB various things were contributing to his bilirubin levels being high - he was born early, had bad bruising from forceps, had a different blood type to me and was breastfed. If you’re worried (which is understandable) ask why they think he had prolonged jaundice and to see the chart x