Greetings all,

In the recent Lactation Educator course I just completed, the instructor
referred to a study that showed a statistically significant difference in
the level of bilirubin on DOL6 for babies given no supplements and babies
given both water and glucose water.  But the numbers were not in the united
states scale, so I am wondering what they mean in real, not relative terms.


The study showed plasma bilirubin levels of  67.7 +/- 6.7 for no supplements
on DOL6, 80.8 +/- 8.8 for dextrose in water and 93.5 +/- 13.6 for water
alone.
 
Is this the scale on the right side of the nomogram?  Or some other scale?
I ask, because while these numbers seem dramatic to me in relative terms, if
they are the numbers on the right side of the nomogram, then on DOL6 they
make little real difference as they are all WAY down in the low risk zone at
DOL6 - that intermediate risk zone starts at closer to 200.  The instructor
mentioned they were Scandinavian numbers.  I tried to access the study
itself, but only the abstract was available online, and I can't find any
other scales online other than the standard nomogram.

I got curious about this because my sister in law gave birth on Saturday and
the hospital tried to give the baby glucose water with the vitamin K shot
(they did this because they were circumsizing in the hospital on DOL2) and
said it was a pain reliever.  She declined it because she wants to
exclusively BF.  When she mentioned it later, I told her that in addition to
this study, there was a this study showing an increase in jaundice if giving
sugar water and that it seems like a bad practice to me all the way
around... They wanted to do it again during the circumsicion along with a
pacifier and she declined both and the baby sucked on her husband's finger
and fell asleep halfway through.  :-)  

But now, if the study was only significant from a statistics point of view
(still interesting, but maybe not as interesting clinically), then I feel
like kind of a dink.. Can someone fill me in on these numbers, since I know
this is a very international community.  But if the scale is not the one on
the nomogram, maybe these numbers are super-dramatic, so I'd like to
understand that too.

Thanks!!!

Nicki Heskin, CLEC (my nifty, new initials!)

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