Hemangiomas (aka strawberries) aren’t the only strange looking birthmarks your child could have. There are many others. Some are vascular birthmarks (red in color) and others are pigmented birthmarks (markings on skin that can range in colors but are not red).
During discussions about my post regarding my daughter’s hemangioma, one mother shared that her daughter had something called Mongolian Blue Spots. They are blueish in color and look like bruises. The spots are on her back, near her shoulder and just above her butt. (Most Mongolian Blue Spots appear on the lower back and buttocks. It’s rare for them to appear on scalps or faces.) They’ve had to have them documented by their pediatrician, in case someone suspects that they are bruises. In fact, they thought that they were bruises that resulted from how the doctor pulled their daughter out at birth, when they first appeared. How can you tell the difference? Bruises change colors. Blue Spots don’t. Bruises hurt. Blue Spots don’t. Bruises also fade fairly quickly, whereas blue spots don’t fade or change quickly at all. (Do a Google image search – some are huge and don’t really look like bruises, others are much more subtle & could easily be mistaken.) Mongolian Blue Spots are a pigmented birthmark.
My daughter has a stork bite on the back of her head. (Poor kid can’t get a break! lol ) It gave the story about storks dropping babies off a whole new meaning for us. It is an area of her skin, near the nape of her neck, that is colored red. It looks like it spreads when she’s upset & crying really hard, as her whole head will get red, starting from the stork bite. It’s a vascular birthmark.
Like many/most birthmarks, Mongolian Blue Spots and Stork Bites may be present at birth or may appear sometime shortly after birth and tend to fade as the child gets older. In many/most cases they disappear completely by adolescence. Sometimes birthmarks do require medical attention, but generally, they don’t. Make sure that your pediatrician is aware of any birthmarks on your child and let them know if there are any changes or any abnormalities.
I wonder how many other kinds of birthmarks there are? (Did you know moles are considered birthmarks? I didn’t.) I’m sharing links below about Blue Spots, Stork Bites, and other birthmarks. Check them out and educate yourself. That way you’ll know what that thing is on her eye, back, neck, etc. 🙂
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