Hemangiomas

Here is a blurry pic of his hemangioma birthmark. What country do you think it looks like?

I couldn't get a sharp image of the birth mark because he kept turning toward or grabbing the camera!

I wrote about Aki Bear's birth mark before and said that it was a "Stork Bite". Well, I did more research and it's not a stork bite it's a Hemangioma or a "strawberry mark". I remember asking the Pediatrician what it was called and she said, "Hemangioma" and then I said, "Is that the same thing as a stork bite?" and she looked at me with a quizzical expression and said, "Yeah." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but NO! (One of Mike's architecture professors used to say that.) So I looked up "Hemangioma" and found this definition from Kids Health dot org:

"Hemangiomas are classified as superficial when they appear on the surface of the skin ("strawberry marks") and deep when found deeper below the skin's surface. They can be slightly raised and bright red and sometimes aren't visible until a few days or weeks after a baby is born. Deep hemangiomas may be bluish because they involve blood vessels in deeper layers of the skin. Hemangiomas grow rapidly during the first 6 months or so of life, but usually shrink back and disappear by the time a child is 5 to 9 years old. Some, particularly larger ones, may leave a scar as they regress that can be corrected by minor plastic surgery. Most are on the head or neck, although they can be anywhere on the body, and can cause complications if their location interferes with sight, feeding, breathing, or other body functions."

The Bear's is slightly raised and bright red. This type of birthmark does eventually go away but it has gotten brighter and bigger since he was born. It is the brightest, prettiest red, on the left side of his neck. Thank goodness it will go away before he is a teenager because I can imagine him getting teased for having a "hickey" or a "vampire bite"...but maybe those are cool things to have when you're a teenager.

I don't know why the Pediatrician said it was the same thing as a stork bite. Maybe I mumbled and she just said, "Yeah." I do mumble sometimes. I'm like the low talker on Seinfeld who got him to agree to wear a puffy shirt on television:

You can see other images of his birth mark in this post and this post. You can also see it in this post where I labeled it "Stork Bite" and in that post it's super duper light compared to what it looks like now, it's amazing really.