Mine PCOS

Dangerous Level of Bilirubin in Preterm babies and full term babies

Usually, newborns have high level of bilirubin compared to adults for the reason that the livers of newborns are in developing stage and not yet fully matured. Being immature, the livers of newborns are unable to process bilirubin as efficiently as adults' livers perform. As the baby grows, the performance of baby's becomes better for decreasing bilirubin level.

Several factors impacts the level of bilirubin in newborns like their gestational age, full term delivery or premature delivery, health of baby and other medical conditions etc.

If a baby is full term and his health his good, the bilirubin level found in his blood may be less than 5 mg/dL which may further increase temporarily for the first few days whereafter the baby's liver start reducing bilirubin level to normal.

However, in some cases, high bilirubin level may prove to be dangerous. For example, if bilirubin level of a newborn baby continue to rise and does not automatically decrease even after few days.

The dangerous level of bilirubin is different in full term newborns from premature new born.

In full-term newborns, a bilirubin level of more than 20 to 25 mg/dL is considered to be dangerous. However, dangerous level of bilirubin in premature new born is 15 to 18 mg/dL

A dangerous level of bilirubin in full term newborn may lead to severe complications like brain damage (in rare cases), developmental delays, yellowing of eyes and skin.

A dangerous level of bilirubin in premature newborn may lead to more severe complications as compare to full term like brain damage, hearing loss, and developmental delays etc.

A phototheorapy or blood transfusion may be suggested as treatment of high bilirubin. Additionally, if high bilirubin is caused by any other medical condition, its treatment may also be suggested according to cause of such medical condition.

However, there are some risks associated with blood transfusion. Click here to know, how my own preterm new born baby lost his life soon after his blood transfusion