Hi everyone,

Hopefully this can help someone else out.

As you may or may not know, newborns are born with an excess of red blood cells. During the body’s breakdown and recycling of these red blood cells the product is bilirubin. The bilirubin is supposed to pass through the liver where it is processed and excreted through the stool.

Before birth, the placenta takes this bilirubin, and it is processed by the mother’s liver.

When the baby is born, the baby’s own liver takes over the process. With the excess red blood cells turning into bilirubin, and the liver having to process all this excess, the liver becomes overloaded and the skin starts to turn yellow. Jaundice symptoms appear within the first 2-5 days.

That’s what has happened to each of our 5 kids. The remedy for this high bilirubin level is either to put the baby in the sunlight, or a fluorescent light. Or, if the levels are really high, you may be prescribed a “bilibelt” or something like this. It’s like a concentrated fluorescent light which wraps around the baby’s abdomen. Of course, this is wrapped on the skin, not the clothes.

With Clarissa, our newest member of the family, she saw the pediatrician around 7 days after her birth. This was after the 2-5 days, like I said above. In the hospital, she was there for 4 days, and they didn’t say she had any jaundice or symptoms.

Anyway she was tested for jaundice and for her birth weight (newborns typically lose weight after they’re born), and these were her results:

18.6 bilirubin level
7lbs 3oz weight

Both were bad.

The bilirubin level was high and the weight loss was under 10% of her birth weight of 8lbs 3oz.

The doctor asked if I wanted to go to the hospital now or see if this clears up at home.

He prescribed a “biliblanket” (phototherapy) and to supplement her feeding with formula (she is nursed). 2oz formula every 3 hours. My wife didn’t want her milk supply to be diminished or the baby to get too used to the bottle (which is easier to suck from), so she nursed first, then gave the bottle.

As a side note, the doctor’s gave a negative report about all our now normal kids.
With our 12 year old, the doctor said she had a irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia).
With our 10 year old, I don’t remember what it was.
With our 7 year old, it was a hole in her brain.
With our 5 year old, I don’t remember what it was.

Anyway, the hospital issue was not something that alarmed me.

Oh, another thing, we don’t have health insurance.

So we prayed that God would heal her and lower the bilirubin count and raise her weight by the next day. We rented the “biliblanket” and my wife supplemented her food.

God did the healing.

The next day, around 24 hours later, He had lowered her bilirubin count to 13 and raised her weight to 7lbs 8oz.

The doctor did not want her weight below 10%. 10% of 8lbs 3oz is around 8 oz. (16oz per pound) So the lowest would be around 7lbs 5oz.

13 bilirubin level
7lbs 8oz weight

The bilirubin count was on its way down. Down around 5 pts.

“Faith without works is dead”, James 2:20

Thank God for the healing, He can do the same for you.

If this has helped you, consider making a donation on the right side of your screen, thanks. Also, feel free to leave you comment below.

Thanks for reading!

Erik Loebl

Tweet This Post