Ever heard of “bilirubin”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilirubin? How about “jaundice”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaundice? Well it turns out that Ms. Janie has two big risk factors for it, which is why they checked it at least daily in the hospital, why we had to get her blood tested on Friday, and why we’re going back to the hospital tomorrow (Monday). See the below quote from “here”:http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/AdviceFromDoctors/YourChildsHealth/newbornjaundice:
bq.. A blood type incompatibility between the mother and baby is also a reason to track the newborn’s jaundice more closely. This exists when a mother has the blood type O (and therefore has antibodies against A and B cells) and her newborn is of blood type A or B. This may cause the newborn’s red blood cells to break down more quickly due to maternal antibodies that have leaked into the baby’s bloodstream.
A blood type incompatibility also exists if the mother has a Rh (Rhesus) factor negative blood type and the newborn is Rh factor positive. This had been a common cause of severe neonatal jaundice, but is now very uncommon because Rh immune globulin (Rhogham) is given to mothers at risk before delivery.
p. Wouldn’t you know, Janie’s blood type is A-, and Mom’s is O+. Since this didn’t happen with Marie or Brian, Laura did not receive the immunoglobulin mentioned in the second paragraph.
I think Rh factor is something different than if your blood is O+ or O-, because they checked me for this early on and I didn’t have it. Although how they figured Janie didn’t, I can’t remember.
So now that I read that after getting some sleep, I had it a little backwards. If you were O- they would have given you shots, but you are O+. + fights – but not as strongly as – fights +.
If you didn’t see my facebook (friend me!) you didn’t hear that her levels were down today, and no more blood tests for Janie. Yay.