Jaundice

Overall, our stay at the hospital was uneventful. The staff was great and we were well taken care of. They made me get out of bed about 12 hours after the surgery and start walking the halls to help heal from the surgery. It was ridiculously painful at first but got easier as time went on.


Sam's pediatrician came and checked on her every morning. Everything was going well until the morning we were being discharged from the hospital. Her bilirubin levels were rising and they started getting a little concerned. Bilirubin is created as your body breaks down red blood cells and is ordinarly filtered out by a properly functioning liver. When babies are born, their livers are not functioning at full capacity and it sometimes takes a couple of days to get up to speed. In the meantime, they often develop a certain degree of jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, as a result of the increased bilirubin levels in their bloodstream. It is more common in breastfed babies because they are not getting a large quantity of food until the mother's milk "come in" a few days after delivery.

The morning of our discharge, Sam's bilirubin level was on the low end of the range when they start getting concerned. They went ahead and discharged both me and Sam from the hospital but the pediatrician told us to watch her over the course of the day and call that night to see whether they would want us to go and get another test done. They told us to watch and see if she was lethargic because that is a sign of jaundice.

You can see in these pictures that her skin looks a little yellow. Sam did seem lethargic during the day (in retrospect, what 3 day old baby doesn't sleep a lot?) so we called around 4:00 that night and they told us to head back to the hospital for another blood test. Having to take your baby back to the hospital the day she was discharged was really discouraging. We checked in and registered with the Children's Hospital here in Chattanooga and had blood drawn. We decided to go home and wait for results (luckily the hospital is only about 5 minutes from our house). The pediatrician called 2 hours later and said that her levels were steady from that morning and asked us to come in the next day so that a doctor could see her in person. We felt a lot better since her levels had not risen but were still nervous.

We went to the pediatrician's office the next morning - after a long night of feeding her as much as possible - and he said that everything looked to be headed in the right direction. Sam had gained something like 6 ounces in 24 hours so it was clear that she was getting a lot of food! She was given the "all clear" for worries about jaundice and we were told to make an appointment for her one month checkup. First potential baby disaster averted!