Milla Jovovich gave birth to her third daughter, Osian Lark Elliot Jovovich-Anderson, in early February. Now she is opening up about her newest baby’s health.
The actress took to Instagram last week to share that Osian has a “bad case of jaundice.” And as a result of the diagnosis, Jovovich has been feeding her “expressed breast milk.”
Milla Jovovich Says 3-Week-Old Is Dealing With Jaundice
When a baby has jaundice, doctors recommend that new mothers feed their babies with expressed breast milk if the baby is not actively feeding. “Milk expression may be needed to initiate adequate milk production and possibly to supplement breastfeeding,” according to the La Leche League.
Jaundice, according to the Cleveland Clinic, is a condition in which the skin, whites of the eyes and mucous membranes turn yellow because of a high level of bilirubin, a yellow-orange bile pigment. It has many causes.
Osian’s big sisters were by their mother’s side to help feed their new baby sister. Jovovich posted a photo of her 4-year-old daughter, Dashiel Edan, bottle-feeding the 3-week-old.
“I’ve had to supplement with expressed breast milk because Osian has a bad case of jaundice that she hasn’t been able to kick, so we’ve been in and out of the hospital all week and they said the more milk she eats quicker she’ll get them all out,” Jovovich said on Instagram. “But she falls asleep so quickly breastfeeding that we’ve had to do the bottle feeding so she gets as much as possible.”
Osian was born on February 3 and the actress excitedly shared the news with sweet photos of her daughters, 12-year-old Ever Gabo and Dashiel, along with her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, by her and Osian’s bedside.
The doctors have been testing Osian for antibodies and the family hopes the baby will have enough soon so that she will discharged from the hospital. “Poor one has so many little scratches on her heels where they’ve taken blood to test her for antibodies, it makes my heart hurt to think about. But hopefully, the blood test they did today will show that she’s all better.”
Jovovich shared an update on Sunday that Osian spent “her first day outside the blue light Bili Blanket.” The doctors were measuring her bilirubin levels to see if she needed to go back to the hospital that night or not. It’s unclear what the decision was.