I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what infintial (baby) jundice is. Also, if a 6 day old baby was born with a jaundice level of 5 and now has a juandice level of 16.8 what exactly does that mean?

In the human body new blood is being made all the time and old blood is being destroyed. One of the breakdown products of blood is "bilirubin". Bilirubin is normally processed in the liver and is eliminated from the body in the faeces (bowel motions).

For the first few days after birth a baby's liver does not work as efficiently as it does later. So there tends to be a build-up of bilirubin in the blood. This causes the yellow colouration in the skin and whites of the eyes.



Causes of Jaundice

Treatment of Jaundice