Early discharge does not affect infant jaundice
A University of California, San Francisco-Kaiser Permanente study found that early discharge of newborns from the hospital, even as early as less than 24 hours, is not linked to an increase in the occurrence of extreme newborn jaundice, according to a report presented at the recent annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Washington, DC.
The UCSF-Kaiser study reviewed data from 34,840 infants over a 16-month period. The infants were all born alive at 11 Kaiser Permanente Hospitals in Northern California between January 1995 and April 1996 with birth weights of 4.4 or more pounds.
Although 33% of the infants in the study were released after less than 24 hours, only 54 infants, or 0.14%, had extreme hyperbilirubinemia, or jaundice, with a total bilirubin reading of greater than or equal to 25 mg/dl. Of those infants with extreme jaundice, Asian infants, males, and those less mature at birth were found to be more at risk for extreme jaundice.
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