Background: Neonatal jaundice is a common problem which is of particular importance because of the serious complications such as kernicterus. Identification of predisposing factors can cause rapid diagnosis and treatment of jaundice. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of jaundice in the perinatal period.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study of 170 infants born in 2011 in 22 Bahman Hospital Gonabad, non- probability sampling was used. Demographic details such as age and gender were collected. Results were analyzed by SPSS 19 software.

Results: The incidence of neonatal jaundice was 53.5 %( 91/170). There were 48 male (52.7%) and 43 (47.3%) female infants. Most babies had mild jaundice (47.8%) and 15.2% with severe jaundice. Most infants with jaundice were born in a vaginal delivery. Age of mothers of newborns with jaundice, in most cases(65.9%) were more than 25 years and most of them had blood group O (34.1%), positive RH (89%) and second pregnancy (61.5%). No significant statistical association was found between the demographic characteristics of mothers and jaundice (p<0.05). Also RH negative mothers with RH positive husbands had correlation with jaundice (p<0.05).

Conclusions: According to the high prevalence of jaundice in Gonabad further studies with a large sample size must be recommended in order to obtain accurate statistics on the prevalence of jaundice in high-risk infants.