First Baby Adventure: Blue Light Special

Life is never dull once you have children, and it wasn't long after we brought the baby home that we had our first bit of excitement with him.  At his first well baby check the following Tuesday our pediatrician suspected he was jaundice and ran some labs.  That night she called and let us know that he did indeed have too much bilirubin in his blood and was jaundice. 

Babies of Asian decent have a higher liklihood of being jaundice, but the doctors at the hospital had been so happy with his color that I'd kind of thought that it wouldn't be an issue this time.  ER had been a little jaundice but hadn't needed any treatment.  I didn't realize that levels peak between 3-5 days old.  While he'd been a nice pinky shade at the hospital by his first doctor appointment, he was most definitely yellowish.  I totally saw it once, the doctor was on the phone telling me,  She told Brad the next day that he was aglow when we brought him in, so she wasn't surprised by the results. 

The intervention most of you are familiar with or have heard of; I'm sure there are some of you who have been through the same thing.  He needed phototherapy treatment for a few days.  Later that night we had a biliblanket delivered to our door and the second visit of the day from a home care nurse, the first was for me earlier that morning to remove staples.  The biliblanket is kinda neat and I'm certainly glad they have portable versions of the lights so we didn't have to take him back to the hospital.  It does look kinda crazy to see your baby all glowing bright blue.

I'm happy to report that the treatment worked and he didn't seem to mind it at all.  We think he liked being so warm and toasty.  It was just a bit of a hassle dealing with the cord when trying to feed and the machine was noisy for mom & dad.  The worst part was that his poor feet had to keep getting poked as he needed to be tested four days in a row.  They warm the foot and then have to fill a small vial, he cried whenever poked but then calmed right down.  I think that part was hardest on Mommy thinking about it back at home.  Brad got to take him in each day, as the complications from my incision made it hard for me to move about and get to the doctor.