Why is My Baby's Skin Turning Yellowish Orange?

As a parent, noticing that your baby's skin has turned a yellowish orange hue can be cause for concern. For many parents, myself included, the first thought is that your baby must be seriously ill. While any noticeable change in your child's skin should be brought to the child's pediatrician's attention for further investigation, there's a good chance that your baby's yellowish orange skin tone is caused by an excess build up of beta carotene. The excess build up of carotene is called carotenemia.

What causes carotenemia?

Does your baby love vegetables chock full of beta carotene? If they love their carrots, squash and sweet potatoes and turn their nose up to other vegetables, there's a good chance that your baby's skin turned yellowish orange due to the beta carotene in their favorite vegetables. According to eMedicine, consuming an excess of carotene-rich foods such as the above-named vegetables over long period of time can lead to carotenemia.

Is carotenemia harmful to baby?

No. My child's pediatrician informed me that while carotenemia is not harmful to baby, it would leave his skin a yellowish orange color until his diet was changed and his body was able to rid itself of the excess carotene built up in his body.

Does my baby's skin look yellow or orange to you?

In my child's case, the carotene built up slowly, making it harder to detect because he wasn't spanking white one day and orange the next. Aside from having his skin color slightly yellowish, his nose took on a distinctive orange hue. This was noticeable against his white Christening outfit, even months later. It took several months for his skin to return to normal color, which was consistent with what our pediatrician told us after making his diagnosis.

Want to see what a baby with carotenemia looks like? Click the photo attached to this article.

What to expect when you visit the pediatrician

Our pediatrician was confident our child suffered from carotenemia after asking me a few questions about his diet, and blood tests ultimately ruled out any other serious conditions that can cause yellowed skin. In the end, our child was not seriously ill at all. He was simply a fussy eater who preferred to eat vegetables high in beta carotene. As parents, we fed our fussy eater the foods that he would eat so that he wouldn't go away hungry. We inadvertently contributed to our child's carotenemia by choosing the path of least resistance when it came to food preferences.

Our pediatrician counseled us about making an effort to expand our child's diet to include other foods and to cut back on the orange and yellow vegetables our child loved so much. Instead of serving my son orange vegetables, I instead made a point of encouraging him to eat other vegetables such as green beans and peas and avoiding jarred baby food and dinners that were comprised of ingredients high in beta carotene.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, just a parent with experience with carotenemia. If your child's skin is yellow or orange, please seek professional assistance to determine a proper diagnosis. Do not rely on the contents of this article to make your own diagnosis.

Sources:
Personal experience
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/984934-overview