As an effective treatment of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia, phototherapy has been widely applied in clinic. Recent studies have shown that neonatal phototherapy can increase the mortality of extremely low birth weight infants through such mechanisms as oxidative stress and DNA damage, and is related to childhood tumors, melanoma, allergic diseases and epilepsy. Therefore, it is necessary to further explore and optimize the light source devices and change the phototherapy approaches, etc., to reduce the adverse reactions of phototherapy. This article reviews the research progress of the adverse reactions of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia phototherapy.