Exchange Transfusion Threshold Calculator

About this calculator

Severe newborn jaundice (hyperbilirubinemia) carries a risk of kernicterus, permanent brain damage from bilirubin crossing into the brain, so pediatric guidelines — most notably those from the American Academy of Pediatrics — define bilirubin thresholds at which an exchange transfusion (replacing the infant's blood to rapidly lower bilirubin) should be considered.

These thresholds aren't a single number: they vary by the baby's age in hours and by risk category (based on gestational age and other risk factors like isoimmune hemolytic disease), since a preterm or higher-risk infant tolerates far less bilirubin safely than a healthy term newborn. This tool applies a simplified version of those threshold curves and is explicitly not a substitute for clinical judgment.