Jaundice

So today's topic is something that I have been wanting to share for a while, since I know the product that helped us is not widely known or used.  We had a few rough patches when my son was born.  First of all, he had a broken clavicle, which turned out to not be that big of a deal.  They started by keeping the sleeve of his shirt pinned down so he couldn't move his arm, but that didn't last for long.  It set very quickly and healed without much intervention from us, and now there is very little evidence that anything was wrong.

The second problem we faced was that he developed jaundice the night before we were to be discharged.  He had been in the room with me all of the previous day, so by the time the nurses caught it, his levels were already higher than they would like.  He was immediately put on a bilibed. 

Now for those who don't know what a bilibed is, it is a flat bed of UV lights that helps destroy the billiruben in a baby's blood since their body isn't capable of keeping up with it yet. To get an idea of what this looks like, see this link.  We were told to leave him in the bed as much as possible and to only take him out to feed him.  For any new mother, this is hard.  All you want to do in those first few days is cuddle your baby as much as possible, but for his health, I was willing to go along with it.

We had someone come in to arrange sending a bed home with us, and we had to set up a nurse to come to the house to take his blood since the doctor's office would not be open on Sunday.  We were supposed to be discharged at 11, but we had to wait for the bilibed to be delivered.  It didn't get there until 5.  On top of that, my son decided to have a cluster feeding day, which meant that he literally ate all day trying to stimulate my milk to come in, and that made putting him in the bed difficult.  I think he only spent a half hour in the thing while we were at the hospital.  Once we got home we set up the bed, but again, my son was wanting to constantly eat.  By his doctor's appointment the next morning, he had spent two hours total in the bed, and we were trying to figure out a way I could feed him while he was in it. They took his blood at the appointment only to discover his levels had gone up again.

Then our doctor gave us the best news.  It turns out there is another device that works the same as the bilibed, but is much smaller.  It is called the BiliBee and is the size of an i pad. It has a rechargeable battery pack, and it was small enough that we could slide it into his onsie.  To see this device, click this link.  Suddenly, I was able to feed him and hold him all I wanted without worrying about whether he was getting enough time in the bed.  The battery would last several hours, however I was usually sitting next to an outlet so we could leave it charging.  The cord could get in the way sometimes, but it was an improvement from our previous arrangement. We had the BiliBee on him constantly that night, and he never seemed to notice it.  He ate and slept without any disruption, and I was able to continue my bonding with him. On top of that, my milk finally came in. We couldn't have been happier.

The results were quickly noticeable.  By the next day, his skin looked much less yellow.  We had a nurse stop by the house to observe him and to take more blood for testing.  She had never seen the BiliBee before.  She agreed that it seemed like a much better device than the bed.  We got a call later in the day to tell us his levels  had started to go back down. By our Monday morning appointment, he was doing so well that the doctor didn't even take blood.  We returned the BiliBee, and my son has been fine ever since.

I want to tell this story because I would like other parents to know what options are available.  Our doctor only had the BiliBee because a representative had given the office one as a free trial.  We don't know if the company that delivered our original bed had the BiliBee as an option, but I wish I had asked what was available.  For us, this was such an improvement from the BiliBed that I would like it to be the first option available to all families.  It is so hard for new mothers to put their babies down, even when it is for their own good.  With this other device, you don't have to lose any of the bonding time with your baby. I wanted to tell any of my readers about it in case they ever find themselves in this situation, and hopefully as the device gets to be more widely known, it will be the first option available to parents instead of a lucky break.  Thanks for reading!