Jaundice Symptoms

The symptoms of jaundice are usually the signs of another disease.  Jaundice itself is not actually a disease, but a symptom of many other diseases.  Jaundice causes a yellowing of the eyes and skin, and is the direct result of elevated bilirubin levels in the blood.  Bilirubin is a red blood cell that has died and had all the iron released from it. 

Bilirubin is suppossed to be filtered out of the blood by the liver, but there are times when the body is producing more than the liver can handle, which results in jaundice.  Jaundice is associated with other diseases that damage the red blood cells, causing an increase in biliblubin levels in the blood. Jaundice can also be the result of a disease keeping the liver from removing normal levels of bilirubin, resulting in jaudice like symptoms. 

Jaundice in infants is slightly different than jaundice in adults.  In infants, jaundice symptoms are fairly normal.  The red blood cells are different in infants when they are still in the womb, and when they are born, there is a sharp increase in bilirubin levels, resulting in jaundice.  There is also a type of jaundice that is the result of breast feeding.  It is currently unknow why, but breast feeding can cause the child's liver to be less effective when filtering out bilirubin.  This type of jaundice should pass as the child grows, but if the breast feeding type of jaundice does not correct itself, then medical attention should be sought in order to have the child tested for a more serious disease.