COMPARING THE EFFECTS OF CONTINUOUS AND INTERMITTENT PHOTOTHERAPY IN REDUCING BILIRUBIN LEVELS OF INFANTS

About 60% of term infants and 80% of preterm infants are affected by jaundice in the neonatal period which 5-10 % of them require phototherapy. Phototherapy causes the separation of mother and infant, interfering with breastfeeding and there are also some concerns regarding to destruction of the genetic materials. Methods which might reduce the rate of photo would be useful. In this study, we compare the results of continuous and intermittent phototherapy methods on bilirubin levels of infants with hyperbilirubinemia. This study was a randomized clinical trial study which has been undertaken on 100 newborn infants, those who hospitalized in Bandar-Abbas hospital. Using simple Randomization technique, infants were divided into two groups. First groups were 39 newborn infants who were undertaken in intermittent phototherapy (phototherapy was one hour on and one hour off) and the rest (45 infants) were in continuous phototheraphy (phototherapy was on for two hours and 45 minutes, and off for 15 minutes). After starting phototherapy, the total billirubin was measured every 12 hours. Demographic data, feeding method, and incidence of complications were gathered. Mean of age, weight, feeding type and gender distribution did not have any significant difference between two groups. The levels of bilirubin reduced significantly for both groups (p<0.001). The reduction rate of bilirubin were higher in continuous than intermittent group (p<0.01). There were not any significant differences in duration of phototherapy and incidence of side effects in two groups who were under phototherapy. The level of bilirubin reduction was higher in the continuous phototherapy group than intermittent phototherapy and duration of phototherapy for reducing hyperbilirubinemia was similar in two groups of full-term infants.