I have a baby of 2 and a half month old, exclusively breastfed and weighs 7.6kg. Yesterday during our pediatric visit for vaccination , his doctor told that he has liver with more than 3cm in size and said its more than normal. I am worried. Please help.
Thank you for posting your question. In a lot of normal infants, the liver is found to be felt below the ribs up to 3 CMS. Thus, this finding may be absolutely normal. However, an enlarged liver is also found in a lot of disease conditions. The diagnosis would only be possible if the associated symptoms and clinical findings in the baby are correlated. Based on the clinical suspicion lab reports may be ordered to confirm. It is not possible to give you an entire list of conditions causing liver enlargement, not only because it is too vast but also because it might just end up scaring you more than you ought to be. However, what can be done for now is that you keep a watch any associated symptoms. This symptoms may include fever, yellowish discoloration of skin/eyes/urine, pale colored stools, altered smell in urine, abdominal swelling, breathlessness, swelling in any other part of body, decreased urine output, decreased feeding, excessive or poor weight gain, spots over body or any other skin or hair changes etc. If you find any of these, I would advise you to have a detailed talk with your pediatrician and based on the clinical assumptions you may decide on the further course of action. If you need any more guidance do write back.