The Prolonged Jaundice Experience with Our Baby

The Prolonged Jaundice Experience with Our Baby

This our real-life experience with prolonged jaundice. It happened to our first child four years as first-time parent. We have two boys right now. It is one of the most painful experiences we encountered as parents and we always forgot to blog about our experiences.

Our boy is a 37 weeks old baby, he came out early and took us by surprised. However, we did prepare for him as we went for the pre-natal classes. We prepared the ‘baby starter pack’ in our car and all the other baby things like car seat, baby cot, baby clothing, towels, napkins, creams and anything related with toddler.

We knew about jaundice as we learnt about it and read about it. There is a myth that Asian babies have the tendencies for jaundice. We had a confinement lady and we were staying at my parents’ house. There were lots of attentions for sure. My parents, my siblings as well as my grandmother were there.

Almost every day, my father will put him under the morning sun under a thin layer shade of curtain. We didn’t notice nothing amiss as we were with him every day.

As we posted his picture online quite frequently like many other parents, one of our friends noticed that our boy is ‘quite’ yellowish which is the sign of jaundice. From day one, we have been bringing our baby to a famous paediatrician in Old Klang Road called Koe Child Clinic. Koe Child Clinic or 古儿科药房 have been around for decades. Some of their patients are bringing their own children to the same clinic. Dr. Koe has a very good reputation as one of the top paediatrician in Kuala Lumpur.

We realised the signs of jaundice when he was three weeks old. The symptoms were not there for the first three weeks. We didn’t notice any jaundice on him including the doctor for the first three weeks.

To check for jaundice, the doctor had to collect blood from our boy. This was one of the heart- breaking things to do and to see. As parents, it is hard to endure this. From the blood test, he had jaundice and we had two choices. One is to send him to the hospital and the second one is two rent the UV light machine and we have to put him naked under the UV light as long as possible.

It is not easy to put the baby under light for hours. We will feel uneasy and might cry non-stop. That is bad thing if you rent the UV light machine back and if you put him in the hospital, you probably missed the crying as the nurses might not care about it. Thus, we have to wrapped his eyes to have minimal exposure to the UV lights. For a baby to be blind-folded is never easy and the body is warm under the UV lights for hours.

We had to do another few blood test and to see the needles poked into his fragile hands, it is never an easy thing for parents to endure. After couple of days of the UV light bathing, our baby recovered well but not fully recovered.

Then, we got to know it is called pro-longed jaundice. There are few main causes of it and they are urinary tract infection, hypothyroidism, galactosaemia or breast milk jaundice. We suspected it was most likely breast milk jaundice.

We decided not to go on with the UV light treatment as the last blood test was promising. The prolonged jaundice was spotted after three weeks. He didn’t have the symptoms of jaundice for the first three weeks.

Why we blogged about this? Well, for our second boy we went to Hospital Umra in Shah Alam. Instead of collecting blood, they have a device to check the level of jaundice. It might not be the most accurate way but it has a high percentage of accuracy.

Pro-longed jaundice happens after two to three weeks after the baby is born so take notice of the baby. Instead of getting blood test, there are paediatricians clinics or hospitals that have device to check the level of jaundice without blood test. Hospital Umra in Shah Alam is one of the hospitals that have that devices and we don’t mind visiting them instead of having a needle poking into our baby hands.

We hope this will help first time parents to have more understanding in prolonged jaundice. We are not medical experts but only sharing our experiences as parents. Thank you for reading.

In case you want to know where is this Hospital Umra, address is at

Wilson Ng