Not your grandma's jaundice lights

[dreamshark]

So the twins have a little jaundice (common in all newborns and pretty much expected in preemies). Fortunately, newborn jaundice is easily treated by exposing the infant to light in a daylight spectrum. In the olden days, this was accomplished by doing the obvious - placing the baby near a sunny window. When my kids were little, sunny windows in hospital nurseries were not easy to come by, and they started putting yellow babies under special lights. I remember this well, because Thorin spent several days under lights. In those days, they were kind of like the lights you put over your iguana's cage: a cheery bright daylight bulb and a heat lamp to make up for the fact that the baby would be stripped to just a diaper to maximize light exposure and they needed to keep them warm. Babies getting this treatment looked like they were vacationing in Cancun, basking on the beach.

Well, I guess that wasn't high tech enough, so now they are doing THIS. I'm not sure I understand it - the lights are apparently inside the swaddling cloths and cobalt blue, like the Health Packs scattered around first person shooters like Half Life and Deus Ex. It looks like they are in a cryosleep chamber or something. But they probably are relieved to find themselves back someplace familiar (wrapped up, eyes covered, warm and cozy). 

The jaundice is not severe (bilirubin 11) and they're expected to be decanted in 24 hours. Other than that, they are doing fine. The NICU nurses have classified them as "feeder-grower," which is what you want to be if you're a preemie.

 Feeder-grower: A baby that is only in the NICU to learn to feed and get its weight up and has no other medical concerns.

Comments

[lydy]

The babe looks very stfnal. Grow, little babies, grow!

[quadong]

We were given something like this to use with Becca at home. It was terrible. They decided that it should be attached to itself with velcro, and that the place to cut costs was on the velcro, so it didn't really stay together. It was also rather stiff and not baby-shaped. And this was our first baby and we didn't know how to handle babies in the first place. Ug.

[dreamshark]

There are some advantages to having your newborn in an Intensive Care Unit. Amber and Olin are sad that they are separated from their babies, but I think they're lucky they aren't trying to manage all this at home. Get some sleep, kids. You're all going to need it.

[vgqn]

Very SF!

[minnehaha]

Which one is this one?

K.

[dreamshark]

Who knows? They are hard enough to tell apart when you can see them. They are both under lights, if that's what you mean. Or were. They may well be out by now.