Jaundice Vitamin D production. Bilirubin count is lowered through bowel movements and urination, so frequent and effective feedings are especially important. Yellow discoloration of the skin, especially on the palms and the soles, but not of the sclera or inside the mouth is due to carotenemia—a harmless condition. Jaundice itself is not a disease, but rather a sign of one of many possible underlying pathological processes that occur at some point along the normal physiological pathway of the metabolism of bilirubin in blood. When red blood cells have completed their life span of approximately 120 days, or when they are damaged,
Neonatal jaundice the newborn. However, any newborn with a total serum bilirubin greater than 359 μmol/l ( 21 mg/dL) should receive phototherapy. 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. The phototherapy involved is not ultraviolet light therapy but rather a specific frequency of blue light. The light can be applied with overhead lamps, which means that the baby's eyes need to be covered, or with a device called a biliblanket, which sits under the baby's clothing close to its skin. The use of phototherapy was first discovered,