Researchers Develop Low-Tech Jaundice Treatment Remy Tumin - TakePart
go to original October 14, 2015

Neonatal jaundice is traditionally treated using conventional phototherapy. (BSIP/Getty Images)

A new low-tech, low-cost cure for jaundice could save thousands of newborns in impoverished countries. Just look to the sky for the answer. Researchers from Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, and the Massey Street Children’s Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, have developed sunlight-filtering canopies to treat the condition in newborns. This new affordable option relies on sheets of plastic film and the sun because traditional phototherapy, which requires neonatal incubators and ultraviolet bulbs, isn’t always possible in developing countries.

“This is an easy solution to a serious problem,” Dr. David Stevenson, a Stanford professor of pediatrics specializing in neonatal and developmental medicine, told Smithsonian magazine.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 60 percent of all newborns have jaundice. The disease affects 481,000 newborn infants every year; 114,000 of them die, and 63,000 survive with disabilities.

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