It sounds like an A, B, O incompatibility. When mom has type O blood and her 
baby is either A, B, or AB, she can transmit antibodies through the placenta to 
the baby, that attack the baby's blood. This happens because a little bit of 
the baby's blood has crossed into the mother's bloodstream.The mother's 
blood recognizes the baby's blood type as a foreign invader and produces the 
anitbodies (like what happens if you give a person the wrong type blood during 
a transfusion). The destruction of the baby's blood cells by the mother's 
antibodies can lead to jaundice in the newborn.It is similar to what happens 
when a  mom is Rh negative and her child is Rh positive, but they don't give 
rhoGAM for A,B,O incompatibility, which would explain why the woman you 
describe did not get rhoGAM. It is also not as severe as an Rh incompatibility, 
though it can produce hyperbilirubinemia severe enough to require 
phototherapy and very rarely a transfusion.

These antibodies are not a problem during breastfeeding which is why it is 
okay for a mother in this situation to breastfeed her baby. 

Kathy Lilleskov RN IBCLC

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