And irritability, poor feeding, and jitteriness may occur from the poor circulation through the brain. An extended amount of time passed before the umbilical cord was clamped after birth. After the baby is born, the blood flow tends to primarily go from the placenta into the baby. If too much time passes before the cord is clamped or blood is milked from the cord into the baby, the newborn gets extra blood that may cause a high concentration of red blood cells. When a baby has symptoms that are determined to be due to hyperviscosity syndrome, the treatment is rather simple.
Blood is taken out of the baby's body and replaced with a simple fluid.
This allows for two things. It obviously decreases the number of red blood cells in the body. But it also adds fluid to the baby's circulation allowing for the tissues of the body to move the blood easier which subsequently allows for those organs to get oxygen easier. The procedure is relatively simple to do through one or two I.V.'s, and can be done in about an hour. And as I said previously, most babies who have a high hematocrit at birth never have any concerning symptoms.