Glow Worm Alejandro!

At his 24-hour check up in the hospital, Alejandro's bilirubin level was high, indicating that he was a bit jaundiced. The pediatrician ordered "some time under the lights" to help. When the nurse brought him in to me at 2:30a (keep in mind that he was 24-hours old at 1:30 in the morning!), he was glowing this unearthly blue and green glow. In my exhausted stupor, I didn't even ask the nurse what was happening!! Never-the-less, she explained the elevated levels, the procedure, and how to keep Alejo in between the lights while he slept and nursed. Luis had been a little bit jaundiced, but had not required light therapy. Turns out that male babies are more prone than female babies, and second babies are more prone than first babies (learn something interesting every day!).

Hospital personnel all seemed to try to reassure us that the jaundice was normal and would pass with the light therapy. But neither Diego, nor Alejo, nor I were at all concerned about the lights.

The bassinet set-up looked kind scary - each of the tubes provide UV light to a heating pad-like pad, one he laid on and one was on his belly - and the two tied together to make a UV-Alejo sandwich.

His therapy included a little mask to protect his eyes from the lights. All bundled up like this, he looks kind of surreal.

This picture is kind of dark, but really shows what Alejo looked like at night, all bundled up in his UV lights.

Twenty four hours later, his levels were down, the lights came off and we went home. In the mean time, we got some pretty cool pictures of our "glow worm" baby. We did have to do a follow up with our pediatrician a couple of days later, and everything looked great.