Liam, a study in blue (the color, not the emotion)

Of all the treatments our little guy is going through, the one that upsets me the least is the one for jaundice. For starters, I know that I was jaundice when I was born and I had to have phototherapy (light therapy) and I know I turned out just fine. That provides some emotional comfort. I get some intellectual comfort from the knowledge that it is an issue that tons of kids, even term babies, have.

And truthfully, even the name is comforting. What is his problem? Bilirubin. When compared to the plethora of really medical sounding acronyms that plague preemie babies, bilirubin just sounds so...cute. Like it is the sort of thing that UumpaLoompas come and fix. (Now that I think of it, those uumpaloompas are sort of suspiciously oragne/jaundice looking. Coincidence? I think not).

So our little guy has been on phototherapy for a little while. He didn't get it immediately after birth, but his bilirubin levels were at 10 (who knows what units this is in). In a term baby this would be pretty ok, but they want to be careful in a preemie because his internal systems for taking care of the bilirubin are not fully developed. So he gets light treatment. While he's under the lights he wears a crazy little mask that reminds me of the thing falconers put over the bird's head. There arent any studies to suggest that the lights are harmful to their eyes. The docs explained that they just thought that since they, an adult, wouldnt really want to be under blue light all the time, they might as well provide an extra measure of comfort to the kiddos.

He usually looks so peaced out under his little blue light, so I was having a particularly Picasso-inspired moment, and decided to document the little guy's tanning sessions.