Yellow Alert - Jaundice in Newborn Babies

Yellow Alert is CLDF's prolonged jaundice in newborn babies awareness campaign. It promotes early diagnosis and appropriate referral for liver disease in newborn infants. It is vital that liver disease in newborn babies is identified and treated as early as possible. Prolonged jaundice (yellowing of the skin & the whites of the eyes) can be a sign of liver disease. It is defined as jaundice persisting beyond 2 weeks of age in a full-term baby and 3 weeks in a pre-term baby.

Persistently pale coloured stools may indicate liver disease. Healthy coloured stools can be described as English mustard yellow in bottle fed babies and daffodil yellow in breast fed babies. A baby's urine should be colourless. Urine which is anything other than colourless could be a possible sign of liver disease. Babies with prolonged jaundice and/or persistently pale stools/urine which is anything other than colourless must urgently be referred for a special blood test called a split bilirubin.