Umbilical Cord Blood Bilirubin Level Measurement in Predicting the Development of Significant Hyperbilirubinemia

This prospective study was undertaken to identify the newborns at risk for developing significant hyperbilirubinemia using cord blood serum bilirubin levels.

This was prospective study with total of 282 healthy term newborns delivered at MNR Hospital, were included in study with birth weight more than 2,500 grams during one year period from March 2013 to March 2014. Soon after delivery cord blood was sent for serum bilirubin analysis. The data was analyzed using t-test, ROC curve and chi test and was considered statically significant, if value is P<0.05.

In total 282 children, 51 developed significant hyperbilirubinemia (18.09%). There were no significant differences between the cases who did and who did not develop significant hyperbilirubinemia with respect to various factors that may be associated with the risk of hyperbilirubinemia such as birth weight, type of delivery, gestational age, maternal age, gender, and APGAR value P > 0.05, while in cord bilirubin level there is highly significant difference P <0.05. In our study on the amount of umbilical cord bilirubin cut off pointof 2 mg/dl had good sensitivity(94.12), specificity(90.9%), positivepredictivevalue (69.57%) and negative predictive value (98.59%).

The present study led to the conclusion that the bilirubin levels that were equal to or greater than 2 mg/100 ml umbilical cord blood can predict significant hyperbilirubinemia with high negative and positive predictive values and high levels of sensitivity and specificity.