A Very Ripe Lemon

Shortly after birth, Naomi had to fight a pretty bad case of Jaundice. it could have been caused by a few things...

First of all, all babies are born with premature livers. It is difficult for little ones to filter out all of the excess red blood cells in their bodies that they need in utero to transport all the nutrients they need to develop around their bodies. SO, all babies are checked for jaundice, both at birth and a few days later.

Naomi was also born with a pretty large bruise on her head. We think she banged up against my pelvic bone for a while while trying to engage, which is why it took her so long to get into position. A bruide like that increases the risk for jaundice - more broken red blood cells that need to be filtered out of the body.

And, finally, I had a really tough time with my milk production. More about this in the next post, but basically Naomi was not getting enough milk that would have helped her flush out the excess bilirubin.

So, the odds were stacked against her and when we went to her first pediatrician appointment on the Monday following her birth they sent us to the lab right away. This photo was taken the day before we went to the doctor - compare her skin coloring to mine. It made me feel awful for calling her Lemon all this time!


Her first bilirubin count came back at 21.9 - the docs like to see it under 12 in a newborn. 25 is considered a very dangerous number. Luckily we caught it before it got that far. So, Naomi was ordered to be on light therapy until her level hit under the 12 mark. She was on her bed from Monday, 01/05, through Thursday, 01/08. This was truly difficult as we were not able to take her off the bed other than to feed her. So, for 45 minutes every 3 hours I was able to hold her. Otherwise, she slept. But she made marked progress each day, finally hitting 10 on Friday, 01/09, with her final blood draw. We were so happy when that was over!