Phenylalanine testing...once or twice?

[SilleLu]

Question is...in actual practice are babies tested for PKU just once in the hospital 24 hours after birth, or is this test routinely done again at baby's first appointment outside of hospital (2-6 days after birth).

Only asking what you see in actual practice, not what is recommended. Thank you!

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

You got me curious, so I looked up my state's requirements.

North Carolina State Laboratory Public Health - Newborn Screening

Very interesting to see the variation. It's also interesting to note that states vary on which conditions they test for. NC tests for 25 conditions but others test for more or fewer than that.

It is interesting. Texas is currently testing for 29 disorders. One of the newest added disorders was SCID and you'd be surprised that between us and the childen's hospital nearby, there are several legitimate cases a year. Also quite a few legitimate CF kids have been caught through the screening.

With the micros, it gets frustrating that we get so many false postives for all kinds of metabolic disorders because they are on TPN, false positive because they are not really hypothyroid, just their thyroid is not yet awake, or false positive for CAH and it'll settle out in few weeks. Makes you wish we could exempt the

Wow, are there enough abbreviations in this posting?