repeat heel prick in prem babies

[fairibell]

Just had midwife call to say they need to come and do a repeat heel prick on my 2week old as she was born at 35 weeks - anyone know if this is normal as the hospital hadnt mentioned it??

Fairibell, my dd (not premature) had several heel prick tests over a 3 day period after she was born. She was fairly badly jaundiced, not feeding etc and I think this is why the test was repeated.

Hopefully someone a bit more knowledgable will be able to advise!

We had heel prick done lots of times cos DS (35+5) had bad jaundice, once the result was 'over the line' so he had to have phototherapy then they kept doing test till it went down. Think prem babies more prone to jaundice? HTH and not on wrong track. I would ring midwife if you're worried. Oh yes and was told that with full term babies if jaundice lasts for more than 2 weeks they take a repeat test.

Completely normal for prem babies - not sure why it is done tho. My Prem baby had 3 done in total

This is normal in prem babies as rascal has said. in term babies it is done at 6 days old i think. my 31 weeker had it at 6 days and then again at 35 weeks just before discharge from hospital. The nurses told me it was routine and nothing to worry about. Hope this helps.

it's done whenever it's needed - prem or not. As I said in my post my dd was not premature (she was born at 39.4)

iirc dd had about 5 done over 3 days. It wasn't nice - but necessary.

Good luck, I'm sure everything will be fine

thanks for getting back to me - the heel prick they want us to have is not for the jaundice - we had this in hospital - they want to do the repeat of the heel prick dot test that all babies have a 5 days. Have spoken to the health visitor and apparently it is rountine if it is performed before 36 weeks gestation - my daughter was born at 35+6 so the test was done at 36+4 - therefore the health visitor didn't think it needed to be done again and was just an admin error as the paperwork just says she was born at 35 weeks (it doesnt have the number of days on there!)
thanks again

My DS was born 5 weeks early & needed to have his repeated - apparantly it was because he hadnt taken enough milk, as he was in an incubater.

I mean the Guthrie heel prick test, not the ones for jaundice (he had loads of those )

My DTDs were born at 26+7 they had the Guthrie at 6days or so, which had to be repeated a few days later as there was insufficient sample.

It was not done after discharge (or even just before discharge).

That was 7yrs ago now though.

Just googling I can't see any official guidlines but there are similar threads running on places like Bouty which essentially say the same, a repeat test is done closer to term.

DS was born at 30 weeks and had a few repeat tests due to his gestation. My DD was born at 36+2 weeks and also had to have a repeat Guthrie (when she was approx. 38 weeks equivalent gestation) due to abnormal results from one of the tests. Abnormal results are common in preterm babies or those born my c-sections so are very often repeated. My midwife seemed sure that was all it was. However the second test came back with another abnormal also (after us waiting for 4 weeks!!!) and sadly she had to have follow up tests which resulted in being diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, which was a huge shock. A year on I'm very relieved this was picked up as early as it was thanks to the tests.

Don't want to put a dampener on this but just sharing our experience.

Just another view.

My son had a repeat heel prick purely on the basis that they didn't get enough blood from the first lot. Other reasons may include the fact that the blood isn't in the circle on the card and so on. I have a bit of interest as my PhD is about experiences of the heel prick

Really though I would have expected them to have properly told you why the repeat should have been done.

You can find out more from the official website for the heel prick (officially called newborn bloodspot screening) which is at:
www.newbornbloodspot.screening.nhs.uk although it isn't particularly parent friendly.

Stuart (intrepid dad whose wife has got him into mumsnet)