I've been nomail since April 26 and just did some catching up at the
archives site before turning on the Lactnet faucet again.  I saw this post
from Nikki Lee on May 2, and haven't seen any responses to it.  I've cut and
pasted her reference below my own comments.  It was about the association
between high number of pigmented moles (melanocytic nevi) and having had
phototherapy for jaundice as a newborn.
A couple of things struck me.  I haven't read the original article so do not
know where the research was done.  The children in the study were born
between 1984 and 1989.  Nearly half of them had received phototherapy for
jaundice.  Is this not a very high number?  Even before we changed our
treatment thresholds for jaundice here, we were treating far less than ten
per cent of term babies at that time.  Now, with about 160 births each
month, a baby being treated with lights is the exception rather than the
rule and we have many many days with no babies receiving such treatment at
all.
What this study found was that the forty-four percent of children who had
been given phototherapy had a higher number of pigmented moles than the
children who had not had phototherapy.
There are at least two possible explanations for this.  One is that
phototherapy shortly after birth causes an increase in pigmented moles.
Another is that people with a higher number of pigmented moles are also more
susceptible to elevated bilirubin levels as newborns.  From the abstract it
is not evident that this possibility had been ruled out.  
What I gather from this abstract is that phototherapy for neonatal jaundice
is not necessarily benign in the long run.  We already know that it has
negative effects in the short run.  We should continue to look critically at
anything that carries with it a risk to breastfeeding, and particularly if
it has possible long-term harmful effects.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

From Nikki's post of May 2:
In the latest issue of Pediatrics (Vol. 119 No. 5 May 2007, pp. 1036-1037 
(doi:10.1542/peds.2007-0180) is an article:
 
"Neonatal Blue-Light Phototherapy Could Increase the Risk of Dysplastic
Nevus 
Development" with this finding:
 
"In 2002 and 2003, 747 schoolchildren aged 14 to 18 years were investigated 
to determine the prevalence of common and atypical melanocytic nevi. Data
were 
recorded with regard to the neonatal history of the students, such as 
prematurity, neonatal jaundice and blue-light phototherapy; 44.6% of the
children had 
received phototherapy for the treatment of neonatal jaundice. Our results 
revealed that the prevalence of common melanocytic nevi was quite similar in
the 
treated and untreated children, but exposed subjects were likely to have 
multiple (>100) moles. Neonatal blue-light phototherapy was associated with
a 
significantly higher prevalence of clinically atypical nevi (2 = 4.08;
degrees of 
freedom = 1; P = .0433 [Statistica 7.1; StatSoft, Inc, Tulsa, OK]). The 
prevalence of dysplastic nevi was 19.1% in the untreated group and 25.2% in
the 
treated group. Blue-light phototherapy resulted in a relative risk of 1.32
for the 
development of dysplastic nevus (odds ratio: 1.43; 95% confidence interval: 
1.010-2.026). "

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