![]() Phototherapy with lamps that emit blue wavelengths has been the most prevalent newborn jaundice treatment since the 1960s. Worse, high bilirubin levels can cause lasting brain damage or infant death. If too much bilirubin builds up in the blood, the skin and eyes acquire the hallmark yellow tinge of jaundice. ![]() Jaundice is extremely common in newborns, whose bodies need a few days after birth to develop the enzymes that enable excretion of bilirubin, a compound released during the normal breakdown of red blood cells. In settings with no access to modern devices, we’ve shown we can use something that’s available all around the planet - sunlight - to treat this dangerous condition.” Stevenson also directs the Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. Faber Professor in Pediatrics and senior associate dean for maternal and child health at Stanford. “This research has the potential for global impact,” said the study’s senior author, David Stevenson, MD, the Harold K. The filtered-sunlight treatment was as safe and effective as the blue-light lamps traditionally used to treat infant jaundice, the study found. In the study, conducted in Nigeria, some mothers and babies sat under outdoor canopies that filtered out harmful wavelengths from sunlight, but still allowed jaundice-treating blue wavelengths to reach the babies’ skin. That’s the finding of a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and their colleagues that will be published Sept.17 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Newborn jaundice can be treated with filtered sunlight, providing a safe, inexpensive, low-tech solution to a health problem that now causes permanent brain damage or death in more than 150,000 babies in developing countries each year.
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