We had a case like this in St. Louis at our clinic.  

The Hispanic mom (the studies show that there is more jaundice in us) had a
son who came to our offices with obvious jaundice.  He was hospitalized for
24 hours to run many tests, but when nothing obvious was found, the MD
decided to just watch and wait.  She had me monitor the breastfeeding,
weight gain and baby's alertness daily with bilirubin tests every 2 days
(ouch!).  The levels stabilized at 22 at 10 days of age, then slowly went
down (I'm doing this from memory, sorry, no study done and I could not
remember the name now, 10 years later).  He never had any sleepiness,
weight loss, etc.  She stopped testing when they were below 15, I think,
but that took 3 weeks.

His sister was born 2 years later, the MD decided to monitor and not
hospitalize, and the baby did go WAY up (can't remember her levels, though
they were lower than her brother's probably because she ate more having not
been hospitalized).  They also went down slowly.  

I know my first son also was very jaundiced - actually all three, but the
first was worse probably a combination of a new mom who didn't know to feed
as often as she should (Lack of breastmilk jaundice) combined with the
later breastmilk jaundice.  His lasted over 4 weeks, I know, as my mother
in law came and told me her daughter had been told to stop breastfeeding
when her baby was that yellow!  ( I just kept reading that he would be OK
and calling the La Leche League Leaders daily.)

Jeanette Panchula, RN, IBCLC
Vacaville, CA

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