Are investigations for Neonatal Jaundice mandatory?

"Jaundice does not necessarily need investigations. Most babies have what is called as physiological jaundice. Normally what we do is we check the jaundice for the babies at 36 to 48 hours of age because all babies get jaundice. The reason we test at 36 to 48 hours is it gives a predictive value whether the baby needs treatment or not. Based on that you will assess of the baby needing treatment and also at the same time we do a blood group of the baby. So that determine the blood group incompatibility with the mother and the baby. So in that case we do those basic investigations for babies. If the jaundice becomes pathological, then obviously we need to rule out all other causes like urine infections, G6PD deficiency, thyroid and various other problem. So the routine normal baby jaundice does not necessarily need major investigations"