Neonatal jaundice is a yellowish discoloration of the white part of the eyes and skin in a newborn baby due to high bilirubin levels.

[2] In other cases it results from red blood cell breakdown, liver disease, infection, hypothyroidism, or metabolic disorders (pathologic).

[citation needed] Exchange transfusions performed to lower high bilirubin levels are an aggressive treatment.

[citation needed] If the neonatal jaundice is not resolved with simple phototherapy, other causes such as biliary atresia, Progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis, bile duct paucity, Alagille syndrome, alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, and other pediatric liver diseases should be considered.

[11] Severe neonatal jaundice may indicate the presence of other conditions contributing to the elevated bilirubin levels, of which there are a large variety of possibilities (see below).

[14] Usually occurring in the first week of life, most cases can be ameliorated by frequent breastfeeding sessions of sufficient duration to stimulate adequate milk production.

Breast milk jaundice occurs later in the newborn period, with the bilirubin level usually peaking in the sixth to 14th days of life.

[21] Mechanisms involved in physiological jaundice include: Diagnosis is often by measuring the serum bilirubin level in the blood.

[citation needed] Any of the following features suggests pathological jaundice:[citation needed] The signs which help detect pathological jaundice are the presence of intrauterine growth restriction, stigma of intrauterine infections (e.g. cataracts, small head, and enlargement of the liver and spleen), cephalohematoma, bruising, signs of bleeding in the brain's ventricles.

Family history of jaundice and anemia, family history of neonatal or early infant death due to liver disease, maternal illness suggestive of viral infection (fever, rash or lymphadenopathy), maternal drugs (e.g. sulphonamides, anti-malarials causing red blood cell destruction in G6PD deficiency) are suggestive of pathological jaundice in neonates.

[citation needed] The bilirubin levels for initiative of phototherapy varies depends on the age and health status of the newborn.

[25] Babies with neonatal jaundice may be treated with colored light called phototherapy, which works by changing trans-bilirubin into the water-soluble cis-bilirubin isomer.

Drs Cremer, Richards and Dobbs put together these observations,[29] leading to a landmark randomized clinical trial which was published in Pediatrics in 1968; it took another ten years for the practice to become established.

A recent systematic review has found that there may be a statistically significant association between phototherapy and various hematopoietic cancers (especially myeloid leukemia).