Breast milk jaundice can be cured by stopping breastfeeding for a few days

Breast milk jaundice occurs within two or three months after the birth of a newborn, and usually manifests as skin suppuration and itching. The onset of jaundice varies depending on the child's constitution, but it will not affect the child's normal development. The symptoms of jaundice can be relieved by simply stopping breastfeeding appropriately. Breast milk jaundice generally needs to be stopped for three days. The symptoms of jaundice can be seen from breastfeeding, which is caused by the composition of breast milk.

How many days does it take to see the effect of stopping breastfeeding for breast milk jaundice?

Breast milk jaundice is not serious. If it is just mild, you don’t need to stop breastfeeding. You just need to feed your baby more milk to expel the jaundice from the body. If the jaundice value is high and moderate, you should stop breastfeeding for a few days and observe the effect after stopping breastfeeding for three days. Generally, there will be significant relief after stopping for a week.

Compared with physiological jaundice, breast milk jaundice lasts longer, and some babies may suffer from it for up to two months or even three months. When a newborn develops breast milk jaundice, breastfeeding should be stopped. Although this disease does not require special treatment, the baby's serum bilirubin is high and phototherapy is also needed to avoid affecting the baby's health.

The occurrence of breast milk jaundice will have a certain impact on the baby's health, and it should be taken seriously after the disease occurs. Therefore, in daily life, parents should take their children to the hospital for treatment in time when faced with this situation, and take appropriate care measures in life to avoid serious consequences for the baby's health. If your baby develops jaundice, you should let him go outdoors to bask in the sun, which is also beneficial for his physical recovery.

What to do about breast milk jaundice

1. Phototherapy: Blue light can reduce serum bilirubin

For full-term infants who have been diagnosed with breast milk jaundice, if the serum bilirubin is too high, exceeding the absolute peak of 220 μmol/L, phototherapy can be used to lower the peak first.

Studies have found that blue light with a wavelength of 425 to 475 nm can reduce serum bilirubin. After exposure to this light, bilirubin is converted and excreted from the body through urine and bile. Place the baby in front of the light box and cover the eyes with a black eye mask (gauze wrapped in black paper). Change the body position every hour to increase the light area, and make sure to give the child water to prevent dehydration. Generally, the treatment should be continued for 24 hours, or at intervals of 10 hours, with a half-day break before continuing. The course of treatment is two to three days.

For children whose symptoms are not too serious, jaundice can be reduced by exposing them to more sunlight every day, because sunlight also contains blue light. However, children should not be exposed to the sun through glass. If the temperature exceeds 30℃, you can consider letting them sunbathe naked so that their skin can be fully exposed to the blue light in the sunlight, but be sure to cover their eyes.

2. Medical treatment: Taking Mianyinchen decoction can help relieve jaundice

Yinzhihuang injection is often used clinically to relieve jaundice symptoms in children. However, a newborn died recently due to Yinzhihuang injection produced by a company in Shanxi. Therefore, some hospitals, for the sake of caution, recommend that children take Yinzhihuang oral liquid, Yinzhihuang granules or boiled Yinchen decoction instead. However, experts believe that Yinzhihuang Injection is an old medicine that has been used for more than 30 years and its efficacy is recognized. The accident was caused by problems with the quality of the medicine, and the formula should be correct.

3. Feeding: Breastfeeding should be small and frequent

In addition, should breastfeeding be reduced or even stopped? Although jaundice will significantly subside after stopping breastfeeding, breast milk is the most ideal food for infants. Do not stop breastfeeding casually, and there is no need to adopt a mixed feeding method of breast milk and formula milk too early. Unless the serum bilirubin value is too high, it is recommended to suspend breastfeeding for three to five days.

During this period, the mother should use a breast pump to express the milk to maintain sufficient milk secretion, and breastfeeding should continue after the child's jaundice is alleviated. After that, even if the symptoms recur, multiple weaning is not recommended, but you can consider changing the feeding method appropriately, such as: switching to multiple, small amounts of breastfeeding, and giving the child more water. Generally speaking, as the child grows older, breast milk jaundice will gradually subside and will not have a major impact on the baby's healthy development.