Relax, it wasn’t anything you did. It just happens, and there is no known reason for it. There are many studies going on to try to determine why it happens… but lets leave that up to the scientists to determine. Not our overactive imaginations. Besides after a while, you wont be able to imagine your child without it and will love that birthmark just as much as those ten fingers and toes.

Your job as a parent is to find out what kind of birthmark your child has and if there is anything else attributed to having that particular mark. For the most cases there isn’t anything there other than simply a beautiful spot of colour. But to ease our minds as parents we need to know for sure that is all it is. To determine what kind of birthmark it is, you’ll have to go to your doctor for them to see for him or herself. There is a lot of self-diagnosis done over the internet these days and I know from first hand experience that it can lead you into a world of over diagnosis and anxiety. Just because your child has a birthmark doesn’t mean they’ll have any of the symptoms attributed to them.

Below I have a brief description of some of the more common types of birthmarks and their syndrome possibilities. Please remember though that I’m just a parent who had a child with a birthmark and did some research. These may not be perfectly accurate descriptions and should only be used as guidelines. You should check with your Doctor to find out more information.

Stork Bites, Angles Kisses or Salmon patches are flat pink areas that are normally found between the eyes on the forehead in a “V” formation, or the nape of the neck. There can also be small patches around the nose or mouth. The majority of these tend to disappear by the time the child in one with the exception of the marks on the nape of the neck they tend to remain. Salmon patches are more noticeable when a baby is crying or when he or she is hot or cold.

Strawberry Hemangioma actually is raised and protrudes from the skin, looking similar in colour and texture to a strawberry. Most strawberry birthmarks disappear on their own by the time the child reaches five. On some occasions the child will be approaching their teens before they notice it is disappearing. Generally they don’t need to be worried about, unless they are located in an area that interferes with normal everyday function like seeing, or eating and breathing.

Deep Hemangiomas or Cavernous Hemagioma are raised birthmarks that can range in color from, pale, skin colored, red to blue. They tend to be round lumps that may not disappear on their own.

Port wine Stain or PWS actually looks like some wine has been spilled upon the skin leaving a stain in a dark pink, red or purple. The birthmark is a flat patch most commonly found on the face or limbs and rarely crosses the midline. These tend not to fade on their own, but treatment is available for those who are looking. Facial PWS that cover the eye and forehead need to be checked for Sturge Webber Syndrome (SWS), and PWS on the limbs should to be checked for Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome.

Café-au-lait spots are flat brownish birthmarks that tend to develop in infancy, and are generally located on the legs, torso or buttocks. A couple of these birthmarks is not a sign of a health problem, however, six or more spots that are larger than 0.25 in. (6.4 mm) or ones that occur along with freckles in the armpit can suggest Neurofibromatosis.

Mongolian spots tend to occur in children of Asian decent and are smooth, brown or bluish gray birthmarks that tend to be found across the lower back and buttock region. A child may have one or several Mongolian spots that tend to disappear without treatment by age 3 or 4.

“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”
Coco Chanel

If you think your child has a birthmark that needs some extra attention, please remember that a lot of the syndromes are only recognizable through MRI’s or cat scans which can sometimes take quite awhile to get. There will be an ongoing process for quite sometime to get your answers. Your questions will not be answered over night even though as a parent you want the answers now, so you can fix possible problems now. The anxiety can be overwhelming, but remember that everything takes time and nothing is going to get worse during the wait. Just sit back and enjoy your new baby and smother him or her with millions of hugs and kisses.

There are three different paths to take if your child is born with a birthmark that you think may cause social reactions that you’d rather your child not have to endure. You could choose to do nothing at all, and wait for your child to be old enough to make their own decision. You could use makeup as a camouflage, or seek laser treatments for removal. Everyone’s decision will be different because of all of the different factors that are involved with each individual mark and personal or religious beliefs.

For laser treatment, the United States is different from Canada in their care of treating a PWS. Where the U.S. is quite aggressive when it comes to treating and likes to start as early as two weeks old when the skin is very young and thin, Canada generally likes to wait until the child is two years of age. Of course these are just the general rule, and I’m sure will differ from province to province, or state to state as they would from Doctor to Doctor. One thing you should know is that permanent removal is not guaranteed. Usually doctors will say that 80-90% fading will be noticed. Your doctor will have to determine how many sessions will probably be needed to get this fading and then yearly maintenance treatments will probably have to be done to maintain the effects.

IF you choose to try makeup, or have it on hand for your child is older and asks, there are many different brands available for anyone to use, that can be mixed to match any skin tone. These are some common types used in the birthmark community. Dermablend – Covermark – Coverblend – Microskin – JoeBlasco – CoverFX (which is now in Shoppers Drug Mart).

I highly recommend signing on to www.birthmarks.com to learn more information about living with a birthmark. The best way to get answers to all of your questions is to sign onto their email list. It can be overwhelming getting 10-20 plus emails a day but everyone on the list is like family and will try to answer as many questions as possible, the best way to get those answers is to talk to other parents that are going through the same things, or other adults that are living with birthmarks now. I wish you and your family all the best, and good luck with your research and any of the decisions you may encounter.