Are you feeling okay? You look a little yellow to me. This yellowing problem that causes people’s appearance to look different is a condition that affects every 3 in 5 newborn babies, or 60 percent of them. Jaundice is a very common but affecting condition because of its: many types, it is easily detected in newborns and it could cause or be the sign of liver failure
Jaundice is a medical condition that causes a person’s skin and white’s of their eyes to turn yellow. In most severe cases, the whites of a person’s eyes can turn brown, however cases like these are very rare. Even many healthy babies experience jaundice in the first week of life. Other than newborn babies, newborns with an East Asian or Mediterranean background have a higher risk of going through jaundice than any other race.
Jaundice is also called icterus and it forms in the body when there is too much bilirubin in your body. Bilirubin is a yellow-pigmented substance produced when hemoglobin breaks down from red blood cells. Occurring at the same time, the liver is removing all of the old red blood cells as well as the excess bilirubin. When the liver is unable to remove the bilirubin, it causes a buildup in the body making the skin, eyes, and mucus membranes in the mouth to turn yellow.
There are many common types of jaundice. The most common, or normal, type is called Physiological Jaundice. This type occurs in newborn babies because since their liver is not fully developed, it makes it harder for the liver to break down and remove the excess bilirubin. Another type of jaundice is called Breastfeeding jaundice and this can occur when the mother of a child is not giving enough breast milk to their child. However, there isn’t any complication with the mother’s breast milk, this type of jaundice is because the baby is not getting enough to drink. The final type of jaundice is called Blood Incompatibility Jaundice. If the newborn has a different blood type than his/her mother, the
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