NEW YORK POST, TUESDAY FEBRUARY 16, 1999
Inventor mom curbs tears
After her baby endured painful tests for jaundice, former soap opera star Darby Macfarlane created a device soon to be used at hospitals across the country
By Samme Chittum
When Darby Macfarlane's daughter Scarlet was born premature and jaundiced, part of the ordeal was an endless series of needle pricks. "They ended up shaving her hair to get to her head veins," says Macfarlane. "She had scars all over her body from blood-taking. As a mother, I complained bitterly."
Macfarlane didn't just get angry; she got inventive. The result is a pain-free optical device that will forever change the way babies are monitored for jaundice.
Macfarlane, a former soap opera regular (on "Guiding Light") turned businesswoman, is proud of her brain-child. "It's so easy to use," says the Upper East Side inventor. "The babies sleep right through it. Score one for Dr. Mom!"
She's dubbed the device the TLc-BiliTest because it measures, with tender loving care, blood levels of bilirubin - the toxic by-product that builds up when the liver isn't working. It is set to be introduced this week to hospitals across the country.
But it took years of testing and patience on her part to win approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last fall. Baby Scarlet, who inspired her mom's invention is now 13 years old.
About 60 percent of all babies have their bilirubin levels checked at some point. Bilirubin makes the skin turn yellow and is the key to diagnosing jaundice, a common but potentially dangerous liver condition.
Untreated, jaundice can lead to hearing and brain damage, say Dr. Ian Holzman, chief of newborn medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Holzman says complications due to jaundice are rising because mothers and babies are being discharged from hospitals earlier.
Macfarlane's hand-held device, which quickly registers the color of a baby's skin, will save time for prenatal nurses and avoid infection from needle sticks. It makes jaundice easier to detect in infants of all races, does away with costly lab work and can even be used in a doctor's office, says Holzman.
Macfarlane, who was 40 when Scarlet was born, is now 54 and chief executive officer of her own company, Chromatics Color Sciences International, with offices in a brownstone on East 80th Street.
Macfarlane originally developed her expertise in optics after she left acting and made money investing in beauty products that catered to specific skin types.
She then used those profits to develop technology to accurately measure skin color. Following her daughter's ordeal, she put that know-how into her new invention - to check for yellow skin in a baby.
The next step, she says, will be introducing her device to China and Africa, where there are plenty of jaundiced babies in need of care. |
