Jaudice Baby

Vivienne was diagnosed with jaundice after one week. Despite asking the confinement lady to sun her in the morning, she's still pretty yellow. Dr. Koe recommended that we try the home phototherapy instead of sending her to the hospital. This way we would not disrupt her breastfeeding schedule.

I couldn't make up my mind as I thought it will be difficult to contain the baby in a box, let alone blindfold her. But Dr Koe insisted this was more cost effective and breastfeeding friendly. So we opted for it. The package is about RM350 for 3D2N. And the company came to setup the phototherapy for us at home.

Initially, the baby was still new to this and allowed us to wear the blindfold. When first put into the box, she cried a little but after patting a while, she went to sleep. I read that jaundice baby tend to sleep a lot. And Vivienne slept a lot in the phototherapy box, even up to 3-4 hours, still didn't wake up for feed. We had to take her out, woke her up to breastfeed, fearing she might dehydrate. But still she refused to wake up.

The first night went well with the confinement lady keeping guard of her. She started having black / dark green poo which was a good sign that the bilirubin was breaking down. On the 2nd day, she's smart already. The minute you try to blindfold her, she cries. Then she used her hand to push the blindfold away. Max we could put her in was only about 2 hours.

By the 3rd day, we gave up already. We couldn't bear to hear the baby cry in the box. So we gave ourselves excuse that she's better already, could let her escape :P

When we brought her to Dr Koe for checkup again, I was quiet and kept my fingers crossed. Dr said she still a bit yellow but could see she was a lot better. So we just left it at that. She said once the yellow has come down, it would not go up again. So no need to worry.

The yellowish skin took about 2 months to go off. Throughout the period, I was still worried because I remembered Valerie's jaundice was gone after staying one night at the hospital. Sometimes I wondered if it was better to just let Vivienne stay overnight at the hospital. Anyway, home phototheraphy was an eye opening experience. It's really a cheaper option, provided you could bear to hear your baby cry. The same probably would happen even she stayed at the hospital, just that we wont be able to see it though.