The new guidelines concerning management of hyperbilirubinemia in healthy term newborns recommend treatment only for severe jaundice. However, few data are available regarding the long-term effect of exposure to hyperbilirubinemia on cognitive abilities. To address this issue we performed a historical prospective study. Total serum bilirubin (TSB) levels had been prospectively obtained on days 3 and 5 from all 3772 consecutive singleton newborns delivered between Jan. 1975 and Feb. 1976. All infants were treated clinically as indicated including phototherapy and exchange transfusion (n=15). Only one infant reached a TSB ≥25 mg/dL. Intelligence test scores at age 17 were available for 1792 (85.0%) of the males and 748 (44.9%) of the females. A multiple linear regression analysis was used to adjust for the confounding effect of birth weight, gestational age, birth asphyxia, instrumental or cesarean delivery, birth order, and blood type, as well as parental educational attainment, ethnic origin and social status. A logistic regression showed no significant association between low intelligence scores (<85) and TSB >17 mg/dL, odds ratio 0.65 (95% C.I. 0.30-1.43) for males and 1.79(0.47-6.74) for females. We conclude that moderate hyperbilirubinemia in healthy term infants was not associated with adverse cognitive outcome at 17 years of age. The intelligence test scores at 17 years of age by maximal TSB categories (mg/dL) were: Table

Table 1 No caption available.