Newborns discharged from the hospital before they are three days old should be seen by a health care worker in the first three days after they come home, advise researchers. Newborns discharged from the hospital in less than three days are twice as likely to end up back at the hospital -- most often because of jaundice -- compared with infants that stay longer than three days, their study suggests. However, an early visit by a health care professional and better education on breastfeeding may reduce these risks, according to researchers.

It is recommended that infants discharged from the hospital in less than two days be seen by a health care professional within two to three days to ensure that the infant is healthy. That recommendation should also be extended to babies sent home three days or less after birth, according to the report in the June issue of Pediatrics.

Jaundice, a yellowing of the skin that is relatively common in newborns, is often caused by problems with the baby’s liver that are easy to treat, but the condition may also be due to serious disorders that need rapid intervention.

In the study of 29,934 infants, 247 babies, 0.8%, were readmitted to the hospital. The risk of jaundice was 13 times higher if the infant was born before 36 weeks of pregnancy, nearly eight times greater if the baby was found to have jaundice in the hospital, twice as high if the infant were discharged less than 48 hours after delivery, three times as great if the baby were discharged in less than 72 hours and four times as great if the mother breastfed.

However, keeping a mother and child in the hospital longer may not be the answer to reducing the incidence of readmission for jaundice in newborns. Indeed, there is no obvious reason why extra time in the hospital leads to a reduced risk of jaundice in newborns.

Improved breastfeeding education and support for new mothers may help reduce the risk of jaundice. Teaching mothers how to nurse the baby effectively may reduce the risk of neonatal jaundice, comment the study authors. Studies have shown that increasing the frequency of nursing is associated with a reduced risk of jaundice in the baby.

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