Jaundice gone bad
Posted by Gontua on February 26, 2007
The most shocking words from a doctor, that sent shivers down my spine, were that our newborn baby may need a blood exchange transfusion. This means the baby’s blood may have to be replaced with fresh blood via her umbilical vein, from a donor. The doctor told us that the bilirubin level in the baby’s blood was too high that it could permanently damage her brain (bilirubin is a substance that is produced in the breakdown of extra red blood cells in newborns, that must be taken to the liver to get rid of). This shattering news was too much for me to take, and I blamed myself for allowing it to happen.
During my wife pregnancy, I read books about pregnancy, baby and parenthood. From this reading, I understood that ‘jaundice’ was normal for newborns (jaundice is recognized primarily by the yellow discoloration of the skin). With this limited knowledge, I was not really worried when on the third day, I saw a yellow discolouration on our baby’s skin. We had visitors who commented on the jaundice but also agreed that it would disappear soon and adviced us to expose her to the early morning sunlight. But when my wife’s mum visited us on the sixth day, she immediately noticed the abnormality on our baby and advised to bring her to hospital.
Our baby was admitted to the pediatric ward and placed naked under fluorescent lights (procedure called phototheraphy) as the bilirubin level was high. On the second day in the ward, the baby was sleepy most of the time. It was difficult to wake her up and she refused to feed. ‘Water’ needed to be fed to her intravenously (via the vein in her little foot). When her foot become bruised and swollen, the needle was moved to her other foot, which later became bruised and swollen too. It was too much for my wife to see and she cried a lot. As if that was not enough, the doctor came and told us that unless the level of bilirubin reduces, the baby’s blood may have to be replaced to avoid permanent brain damage. We became more terrified when a married couple shared to us how their son survived after a blood exchange transfusion, but still suffered brain damage. I was so terrified of the prospect of being first time parent with a brain damaged baby. I was not a religious kind of person but realising there wasn’t much I could do, turning to God was the only option.
Blood test on our baby on the early morning of the seventh day in the ward showed reducing bilirubin level. Blood replacement was no longer neccessary. By afternoon, the baby was responding well and beginning to feed. The next day, the intravenous feeding needle was removed. Two days later we were at home enjoying the company of our little fairy! The baby grew up perfectly normal – the picture shown here is one of my favorite which I took when she was 2 years old.
That was a well learnt lesson for me. Decision should not be done based on a very limited knowlege. Fortunately, the unthinkable did not happen.
If you like more reading on jaundice, Newborn Jaundice is an excellent article that give detail explanation on the subject.
