New-born jaundice ranked second among ailments treated at the Child Health Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.<\/p>\n New-born jaundice is a condition in which the skin, sclera (white of the eyes) and mucous membranes turn yellow due to the increase of bilirubin, a yellow pigment of red blood cells, in a baby\u2019s blood within the first 28 days of life.<\/p>\n A pediatrician, Dr Abena Takyi, in an interview with the Ghanaian Times on Monday revealed that the condition makes up 30 to 50 percent of admitted cases at the neonatal ward. <\/p>\n Dr Takyi said that aside from the yellow colorization of the skin or sclera, there were other symptoms to look out for to ascertain if a baby was jaundiced. <\/p>\n \u201cBesides jaundice, a baby can have other things that would tell you that the baby is not doing well, so, for instance, poor feeding, weak cry, not very active, high body temperature and in some instances the stools have a pale color.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThese are the symptoms that can suggest the jaundice is becoming severe or maybe there is an infection or a scalp swelling which can predispose the baby to become jaundiced,\u201d she bemoaned. <\/p>\n According to her, the ailment can and cannot be prevented depending on the cause of jaundice, explaining that \u201cwhilst doing everything possible to prevent the child from getting the infection, commonly we would treat any infection in the mother especially if the mother has any urinary tract infection, we would want to treat it as soon as possible and effectively so that the infections are not transmitted to the child.\u201d <\/p>\n The pediatrician admonished parents to desist from using camphor around their newborns as it predisposes them to jaundice. <\/p>\n \u201cAvoid using camphor when you have newborn babies around, especially in the baby\u2019s clothes,\u201d she lamented.<\/p>\n She also cautioned mothers against the use of unprescribed medicines or herbs during pregnancy, and glucose drinks during the lactating period and the practice of good antenatal clinic attendance \u201cbecause you pick up certain risk factors in the mothers when they have attended the clinic then we can prepare for the incoming baby.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Takyi added that parents must be on the lookout to avoid missing the symptoms as it would be difficult to detect jaundice within the first few minutes or hours of birth, so parents needed to be aware that their babies could be jaundiced within the first week of life.<\/p>\n She discouraged the traditional practice where babies were kept indoors for the first few days of life up to a week as it makes it difficult for the mother to detect the jaundice symptoms on time. <\/p>\n \u201cYou need good light to perceive jaundice because it\u2019s not very visible so parents need to have a good look at the baby at least twice a day, maybe once in the morning and once later in the day, several hours apart so you can detect it,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n Dr Takyi encouraged mothers to visit the hospital after detection for further examination, testing and treatment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parents are advised to inspect their newborns at least twice a day for signs of jaundice New-born jaundice ranked second among ailments treated at the Child Health Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. New-born jaundice is a condition in which the skin, sclera (white of the eyes) and mucous membranes turn yellow due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[4754,1268,2817,403,4755,4756,4757,4758,4759],"class_list":["post-984999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-health","tag-ailments","tag-child","tag-department","tag-health","tag-jaundice","tag-korlebu","tag-newborn","tag-tops","tag-treated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Parents](\"https:\/\/cdn.ghanaweb.com\/imagelib\/pics\/679\/67965006.295.jpg\" "\\"Parents")
Parents are advised to inspect their newborns at least twice a day for signs of jaundice<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n