Hello,
A mother reports that her breastfed 6 month old is still jaundiced.
She is seeing her doctor regularly; I don't know what is being done
to investigate or manage the jaundice as I am in the role of helping
the bf helper help the mother (so info comes to me third-hand).  I
have the info in Lawrence & Lawrence on late-onset jaundice and
possible factors in certain mothers' milk which can contribute to
prolonged hyperbilirubinemia (ie, hepatic glucuronyl transferase
inhibiting factor; free fatty acids; abnormal lipases).  All my
sources are rather vague on how long late-onset jaundice can be
expected to last.  "Several months" is the best I could find.

Six months seems a very long time.  Has anyone seen a situation where
there was persistent jaundice NOT attributable to other causes such
as hemolytic disease, hypothyroidism, intestinal obstruction, etc.?
I wonder if the mother's milk is being wrongly blamed, while other
possibilities are going uninvestigated.

The mother reports that a two-week trial of formula in the early
weeks did bring down the bilirubin level, but the infant lost a
shocking amount of weight (over *half* his weight according to the
mom, though that hardly seems possible!) and was failing to thrive
until breastfeeding was resumed.

Margaret
Longmont, Colorado

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