Jaundice Update

When we left the hospital on Monday Camilla's bilirubin was 14.7 so our pediatrician, Dr. Anagnos, sent Baptist Home Health to our house to get her set up with a biliblanket (a machine with a pad with lights in it that attaches to her back). On Wednesday afternoon, the nurse came to the house to prick her heel to test her blood and it had gone up to 19.1 so Dr. Anagnos admitted Camilla to the pediatric unit at Baptist South Hospital. Dr. Anagnos said that 19.1 is very high considering that she was not even 72 hours old and that jaundice usually peaks on day 5. We did not need it to go up any higher.

From the pictures you can see that they had her in a incubator with special lights on her that help breakdown the bilirubin in her blood. She also had an IV and had to wear a mask so the lights would not damage her eyes. We were only able to take her out to feed her and as you can imagine it was so sad trying to comfort her when all we could do was touch and talk to her though the circle openings on the sides. It was a long 24 hours in the hospital and she has 3-4 heel pricks in each foot. When we were discharged yesterday, her bilirubin had gone down to 12.4. We are still doing the phototherapy at home with the biliblanket and the home health nurse just left with her blood work from today. We will keep you posted but pray that her levels continue to go down and we can come off of the biliblanket soon.