So the official word is that his Strep B culture came back negative, so he is fine there. The only still out standing is his level of bilirubin. There is a sliding scale I guess that takes into account age in hours and bilirubin level and plots it on a percentile. We are in the 75th percentile. So currently Mason is sitting under a bili-lite and on top of a bili-blanket in an attempt to get the levels lower.
Basically, bilirubin is a yellow pigment released during the normal breakdown of red blood cells. It is carried in the blood until the liver grabs it and filters it out. The issue is that, in infants, there is more bilirubin in the blood stream than the liver can breakdown and thus the yellow pigment actually gets absorbed and the babies skin takes on a yellow color. The lights help break the bilirubin down and thus makes it easier for the liver to filter it out, I guess?
So the bilirubin levels are higher in breastfed babies, which Mason is. So they have him under the lights in an attempt to get his level down below 13. He was at 14 this AM… It is a bit confusing, since the levels on the chart go up as the baby gets older. So it is not an exact science really, or so it would seem based on the words of the pediatrician. So we are under the lights, waiting for the level to drop. So we wait some more. The light treatment runs for 6 hours and then they restest. The test takes about 1 hour to run. If it is higher than, I would imagine 13?, then we go under the lights for another 6 hours plus 1 hour test. So We leave at 4pm. Or we leave at 11pm. Or we leave at 6am tuesday. Or Or Or etc.
So we are eager to leave, and technically too high levels of bilirubin can eventually pass the barrier into the brain and hurt development, although I doubt that is likely, it really isn’t worth getting home 6 hours earlier for that. So we wait…