Dear all

It is always worth remembering that yellow babies may not be jaundiced.

A few years ago I had a couple of interesting cases of "jaundice" in older non breastfed babies - both were a few  months old. The looked pretty orange and had been diagnosed as jaundice in each case by the family doctor. The key was that in both cases the corneas were white.

Yes, both had been drinking large amounts of carrot juice given in their bottles by their parents and  both had hypercarotonaemia.  Both babies were Belgian - there was a real fad for giving babies lots of carrot juice there at that time. 

It would take absolutely massive doses (tons) of carrots to make this in any way toxic. The main health concern is of misdiagnosis and unnecessary investigation or treatment or the baby missing something else (breastmilk?) because it is getting so much carrot juice . 

People put the strangest things in bottles. It remains one of the strongest reasons I can think of to promote breastfeeding - why should babies have to cope with COKE, tea,  cordial, sugar and water , badly made up formula and all the other things that get put in their bottles ?

Mary E Black
Professor of Public Health
Dept of Social and Preventive Medicine
North Queensland Clinical School
PO box 1103 Cairns QLD 4870

Tel 61 740 503670
Fax 61 740 514 322
E-mail [log in to unmask]