Jaundice
Also called jaundiced, newborn jaundice, neonatal jaundice, prolonged jaundice, breastmilk jaundice
Jaundice is a yellowing of a baby's skin and the whites of the eyes, and it's common in newborns. Parents say a baby is jaundiced, and doctors call the baby kind newborn or neonatal jaundice.
How it's said
My little boy is now 6 weeks old and he's still quite jaundiced (eyes, skin).
My son had prolonged jaundice (over 2 months).
Any experience of newborn jaundice levels rising again after phototherapy?
Who says it
Where it came from
Jaundice came into Middle English from French jaunisse, built on jaune, yellow, which goes back to a Latin word for yellowish.
The light treatment parents now hear about started with an observation at Rochford Hospital in Essex, England. A nurse, Sister Jean Ward, noticed that babies who had been out in the sun were less yellow, and doctors there reported the effect of light in the Lancet in 1958. Phototherapy, given with overhead lamps or a biliblanket, grew from it.