New perspectives on neonatal hyperbilirubinemia.

Notwithstanding a number of advances in the understanding of hyperbilirubinemia and its treatment in the newborn, controversy continues. The trend has been to decrease interventions and observe and manage infants with jaundice as outpatients. This trend will probably prove to be both medically and economically sound. In the absence of significant hemolysis or other underlying medical conditions such as infection, many physicians are now comfortable with expectant observation for those healthy full-term infants with serum bilirubin measurements of less than 18 mg/dL. New thinking about this condition and advances in treatment may transform hyperbilirubinemia in neonates into a medical curiosity.