Administration of phototherapy in term and late preterm newborns

When initiating phototherapy, the newborn should be placed supine, with body exposed and the area covered by the diaper minimized. The eyes should be protected with an opaque shield. Care should be taken to prevent the shield from covering the nose or sliding off the orbits. Light should be delivered to as much of an infant's skin as possible with a combination of light sources both above and below the newborn. Effective phototherapy requires an irradiance of at least 30 microW/cm2/nm with light at a blue to blue-green wavelength (460 to 490 nm). This is ideally provided with a narrow-spectrum blue light-emitting diode (LED) light source.