Newborn jaundice: survey of the cases occured in the Hospital Universitário Regional de Maringá (HUM) from November 1993 to July 1995

Abstract

The objective of the study was delineate the profile of the neonatology service of HUM concerning the service offered to the icteric newborn. All the medical records were surveyed with the diagnostic of the childbirth labor registered from November 1993 to July 1995 at HUM and all the newborn who presented jaundice from the birth to the discharge from the hospital were considered as subject of the study. The data were processed by the “EPI-info/Excel” system and a non-parametric test (“Qui-square”) was used for the analysis of the results. During the period 574 children were born of whom 281 (48,95%) had neonatal jaundice, being 53,38% males sex and 46,62% females sex. The icteric children were divided in two groups (treated and non-treated) and classified according to the gestational age, birth weight, delivery mode, neonatal asphyxia, associated disturbances. The “Qui-square” test was significative for all variables except for the delivery mode. Among the icteric newborn, 74,38% did not receive treatment, 25,27% were submitted to isolated phototherapy and 0,35% to exchange transfusion. Among the treated icteric newborn, in 70,83% the diagnostic was of physiological jaundice and in 9,72% a complication of the phototherapy was attributed to some degree of dehydration. The results observed did not differ from the literature data, showing only the high frequency of jaundice and the diversity of conduct according to the same level of bilirubin and the same gestational age.