What are the common causes of pathological jaundice?

What is pathological jaundice? What are the common causes of pathological jaundice? Pathological jaundice, as the name suggests, means that the jaundice of the baby is not a natural physiological phenomenon, but is caused by underlying diseases.

Anything beyond the range of physiological jaundice is considered pathological jaundice, including jaundice occurring too early (within 24 hours), bilirubin levels being too high (approximately greater than 12 mg/L), bilirubin levels rising too quickly (exceeding 5 mg/L per day), or jaundice taking a long time to subside (more than 1 week). These are all considered pathological jaundice and require further examination and treatment by a pediatrician.

As mentioned earlier, pathological jaundice may occur when any disease causes an excessive increase in bilirubin that exceeds the liver's load, or when the liver itself has problems and is unable to metabolize the bilirubin produced daily. In Taiwan, the most common cause is ABO blood type incompatibility between the mother and the fetus. This occurs when a type 0 mother gives birth to an A or B baby. At this time, the blood type antibodies from the mother can pass through the placenta to destroy the baby's red blood cells, causing hemolysis and causing the baby to develop anemia and jaundice.

Secondly, baby G-6-pD deficiency is also an important cause of neonatal pathological jaundice. When a baby has this genetic disease, the destruction of blood cells after birth is much greater than that of normal babies, so hemolytic anemia and jaundice appear. In addition, neonatal hepatitis, sepsis, urinary tract infection, biliary atresia, hypothyroidism, head blood mass, etc. are also common causes of pathological jaundice.