Blue Light Therapy for Jaundice

Blue light therapy, also called phototherapy, has been used to treat neonatal or infant jaundice for many years. Infant jaundice occurs when a baby's liver is not yet developed enough to absorb a yellowish pigment in the blood called billirubin. In most infants, jaundice will cure itself over time. However, if your infant has additional health conditions or has a severe case of jaundice, doctors will usually recommend blue light therapy to treat the condition.

Causes

• The University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital article "Your Baby, Jaundice, and Phototherapy" suggests that jaundice can be caused by an underdeveloped liver, from not consuming enough breast milk, from a chemical in the mother's milk that causes jaundice, and when a mother and her infant have differing blood groups. The last cause is the most severe as the mother's antibodies destroy the baby's red blood cells. To prevent this condition, before giving birth the mother is administered an injection of RhoGAM, a chemical that keeps the mother's antibodies from attacking the infant's red blood cells.

Symptoms

• Jaundice is primarily identified as it gives the eyes and skin a yellowish tinge. According to the MayoClinic.com, the chemical billirubin is also yellowish in color, and once rejected by the liver, circulates throughout the bloodstream giving the skin and eyes a yellow tint. Additional symptoms of severe jaundice in an infant include: high-pitched cries, a lack of appetite, difficulty gaining weight, and a yellowish hue for longer than three weeks. If these symptoms persist or if you witness additional symptoms in your baby, contact your pediatrician immediately.

Blue Light Therapy

• The article "Your Baby, Jaundice, and Phototherapy" states that infant jaundice can be treated with regular breastfeeding. More severe cases of jaundice that last many weeks are often treated with a "BiliBlanket," a specially designed blanket that emits blue-tinted light that is absorbed by your baby's blood and skin. Once absorbed, this light breaks down the bilirubin and turns it into wastes to be eliminated in the infant's fecal matter. For this reason, infants using the Biliblanket will often have loose, green-colored stools from the bilirubin in their wastes. It can take up to three or four days for the blue light therapy to reduce the excess bilirubin in the infant's blood. However, once that occurs the infant's liver is usually mature enough to handle breaking down the bilirubin without assistance.