What are the characteristics of neonatal pathological jaundice?

Neonatal pathological jaundice is a problem that many newborns will encounter and parents must be vigilant about. As we all know, although many newborns are prone to jaundice, if we fail to pay attention and actively treat it, the harm caused by jaundice to newborns is very serious. Let's analyze the characteristics of neonatal pathological jaundice below, and hope that every parent can pay attention to it.

(1) Hemolytic jaundice: The most common cause of hemolytic jaundice is ABO hemolysis, which is caused by the incompatibility of the blood types of the mother and the fetus. The most common case is when the mother's blood type is O and the fetus's blood type is A or B, and the jaundice caused is more severe. Other cases include when the mother's blood type is A and the fetus's blood type is B or AB; the mother's blood type is B and the fetus's blood type is A or AB, which are less common and the jaundice caused is less severe. As a result, some parents will be very nervous and worry that their children will suffer from ABO hemolytic disease. In fact, one thing we need to point out is that not all newborns with ABO blood type incompatibility will suffer from hemolytic disease. The incidence of ABO incompatibility hemolytic disease in newborns was reported to be 11.9%. Neonatal hemolytic jaundice is characterized by the onset of jaundice within 24 hours after birth and its gradual worsening.

(2) Infectious jaundice: Infectious jaundice is jaundice caused by damage to liver cell function due to viral infection or bacterial infection. Viral infections are mostly intrauterine infections, with cytomegalovirus and hepatitis B virus infections being the most common. Other infections including rubella virus, Epstein-Barr virus, toxoplasmosis, etc. are relatively rare. The most common bacterial infection is septicemia jaundice. The characteristic of jaundice is that physiological jaundice persists or persistent jaundice reappears after physiological jaundice disappears.

(3) Obstructive jaundice: Obstructive jaundice is mostly caused by congenital biliary malformations, with congenital biliary atresia being the most common. The characteristic of jaundice is that jaundice appears 1-2 weeks or 3-4 weeks after birth and gradually deepens. At the same time, the color of the stool gradually changes to light yellow or even white clay.

(4) Breast milk jaundice: This is a special type of pathological jaundice. In a small number of breastfed newborns, the degree of jaundice exceeds normal physiological jaundice, and the reason is not very clear. The characteristics of jaundice are: after the peak of physiological jaundice, the jaundice continues to worsen, and the bilirubin can reach 10-30 mg/dl. If breastfeeding continues, the jaundice will continue at a high level for a period of time before slowly decreasing. If breastfeeding is stopped for 48 hours, the bilirubin will drop significantly by 50%. If breastfeeding resumes, the bilirubin will rise again.

Parents are all concerned about the physical health of newborns, but many times, if they don’t know much about some newborn health care issues, once they encounter such a situation, they will be at a loss and delay treatment. Therefore, I hope that after understanding the above content, every parent can pay attention to it.