Evaluation of the hematological profile of neonatal jaundice among neonates in Erbil city

Abstract

Background and objectives: Neonatal jaundice is the most commonly encountered medical problem in the first two weeks of life, and a common cause of readmission to the hospitals, this study is designed to investigate different hematological parameters in neonatal jaundice and compare them to normal infants, to determine the association ofhematological profile of different etiologies of jaundice in neonates. Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study, investigates blood samples of 600 neonates (300 healthy and 300 jaundice confirmed neonates, regardless of genders), that were admitted to Raparin Pediatric Teaching, and Erbil Maternity Teaching Hospitals, from July 2022 to July 2023. Samples were subjected to the hematological investigations, including complete blood count (CBC), ABO, and Rh for both the fetus and the mother. Additionally, direct antiglobulin test (Coomb´s), reticulocytes count, and G6PD enzyme assay were also assessed. Results: Clinical presentation of neonatal jaundice showed that more than half (57.8%) of the cases were males, and 42.2% were females, oxytocin used for 31.2% of mothers during delivery; 6.5% of patients faced Rh-incompatibility and just 11.3% faced ABO- incompatibility. The most common etiologies for neonatal jaundice were physiological (64%), while others were pathological (36%). Among the pathological, the ABO incompatibility was (20.7%), followed by Rh incompatibility (9%), and G6PD deficiency (6.3%). There was a significance correlation between the jaundice type and evaluated hematological profiles for each group. Conclusion: Most of the neonatal jaundice cases were physiological in nature, with ABO incompatibility as the most common type, while G6PD was the least common pathological type.

Keywords

• cross-sectional study
• g6pd
• hyperbilirubinemia
• jaundice
• neonate