Bili Lights Ever put mom under lights holding baby?

[luvdancink]

I recently had a 3 day old patient come in with jaundice and a high bili. We get these patients fairly often. Because of expense they come to the general pediatrics unit instead of the nicu. We have two types of bili lights the banks and the spot lights. We also have bili wraps. I had a mom insist on holding her child and every time I would enter the room the baby would not be under the lights. Needless to say the bili didn't come down, and management wants to know why I didn't let mom hold the baby and aim the lights on the baby. We put eye protection on the babies, but we dont have eye protection for the mom. Mom is of course obviously taller so she would be closer to the lights. Is this safe practice? Shouldn't mom have eye protection? What do you do in your facilities?

[deenaCHGO]

where i work, we frequently get hyperbili babies. a lot of times there are parent at the bedside that want to feed or hold every couple of hours. We usually have the babies placed on the biliblanket as well as 1-2 spot lights. I always remind parents that if they hold the baby to make sure the biliblanket is to the back so that at least they're on some type of light. We never have parents sit under the spot lights.

[prmenrs, RN]

The mom needs eye protection. I often see parents sitting @ the bedside, starring @ the baby under the lights.

Sunlight, aka UV lights, is associated w/cataracts in later life. That is the danger.

If the parents have sunglasses, that would help. You can buy inexpensive sunglasses (the yellow tinged "blu-blocker" is good), esp the wrap-around type you can put on over regular glasses to have on hand for parents to use.

It's even a good thing for nurses to use them if they're working under the lights for more than adjusting the baby's shades. And turn them off if you need to be in there for longer.