Update on predicting severe hyperbilirubinemia and bilirubin neurotoxicity risks in neonates

Pearl W. Chang, Seattle Children's Hospital
Thomas B. Newman, University of California, San Francisco
M. Jeffrey Maisels, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

Abstract

© 2017 Bentham Science Publishers. Extreme hyperbilirubinemia and kernicterus, though rare, continue to occur despite the adoption of universal screening. Unless they are known to have glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, infants who currently develop kernicterus in high resource countries are often otherwise healthy newborns discharged from the well-baby nursery. In this review, we highlight risk factors that increase the risk of a newborn 35 weeks gestational age developing severe hyperbilirubinemia, as well as the risk factors that increase the hyperbilirubinemic infant’s risk of kernicterus.