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Strawberry Birthmark

54 replies

SpanielEars · 16/08/2006 14:22

My 1 year old has a strawberry birthmark on her nose. We have been told that it will go by itself but i was wondering if anyone else has a kid with one?

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JunkInMyTrunk · 16/08/2006 14:23

dd1 had a large one on the back of her neck. Can hardly see it at all now, don't know when it started fade tho as its just under her hair line and only noticed it had faded when she had her hair cut into a bob a few months ago

HJ · 16/08/2006 14:24

dd had a big one on her bum, it had disappeared by the time she was 4.

TheLadyVanishes · 16/08/2006 14:26

I used to have one on my midriff when i was a child it disappeared by the time i was 10 or something

SpanielEars · 16/08/2006 14:41

junkinmytrunk - how old is your DD?

Thanks for the info all. I'm sick or people asking me how Freya hurt her nose! One guy asked my husband if she had been in a fight. i guess some people are just morons!

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JunkInMyTrunk · 16/08/2006 14:42

dd1 is 3 and half
dd2 is 9 months

Greensleeves · 16/08/2006 14:44

My ds2 has a large one by his left eye. It's fading now but when he was a year old it looked like a big purple golf ball pulling his eye half shut.

The NHS used to offer laser therapy to shrink them, which prodeuced good results in most cases and could almost invariably at least halt the initial rapid growth phase and often send it into reverse. However following one small, rather dubious study carried out at Birmingham Children's Hospital, the NHS has stopped offering any intervention at all unless the mark threatens "function". Our ds was subjected to batteries of tests to determine the level of damage it was doing to his eyesight and treatments such as interlesional steroid injections, injections of toxins (eg Warfarin) and various other invasive measures were mooted. These are nastier and more dangerous than laser treatment but much cheaper. Ultimately nothing was done, and the mark is now receding slowly on its own, leaving ds2 with a stigmatism in the affected eye and the promise of plastic surgery to "tidy up" the remaining excess tissue, which will be a much longer and more traumatic process than laser treatment while the mark was in its infancy would have been. However it is the particular position of ds2's mark that causes the need for plastic surgery - the vast majority of strawberry haemangiomas do resolve completely on their own with no need for surgical "tidying up". If your dd's mark is on her nose it will hopefully be more straightforward.

If your dd's mark is not threatening "function", eg hearing/sight/speech etc, then it is most unlikely that you will be offered anything other than monitoring. It is my belief that the NHS stopped offering laser therapy because it is considered an expensive treatment to use on a blemish which is largely cosmetic and which often disappears spontaneously. The doctors who make these decisions clearly attach no importance whatsoever to the emotional distress which can be caused to parents and children by leaving a disfigurement (some are severe enough to merit this strong term, others less so)which could easily be treated early. The Birmingham study looks in my opinion like a rush-job, commissioned hastily in order to produce results which could be cited in support of a decision already made on financial grounds. Laser therapy is still the standard treatment in th USA and elsewhere and many studies support its efficacy.

As far as spontaneous involution goes - the figures usually given are: 50% go by age 5, 70% by age 7 and 90% by age 9. If the mark has not gone by age 10 then the possibility of laser therapy is revisited (which contravenes the Birmingham study's findings which claimed that it didn not work - but the consultants prefer on the whole not to be drawn on this).

I would push for monitoring to be done by a consultant on a monthly basis if I were you. Strawberry marks are generally not problematic, but they can ulcerate/bleed/start growing very quickly, rarely - and it's better to have a close eye kept on it than just to be fobbed off with "Oh, we leave those alone, it will disappear when she's older" by a GP.

cowmad · 16/08/2006 14:47

please belive me...it will go,
my beautifull little one had a large one, quite raised too, on cheek they all said it would go by age 2.no.. in my experience,it was gone at age 4 totally.
Dont some people ask you some bloody stupid questions about it tho,one silly cow asked me if i felt awful about it!!needless to say,she wont make same mistake again!!!

Nemo1977 · 16/08/2006 14:47

my dd has 2. She is 8mths and has a small one on the top of her head and a huge one on her back. It has stopped growing now but very much there. Have been told tends to start to reduce in size and colour from age 2 onwards.

PrettyCandles · 16/08/2006 14:50

I have one on my face, above my cheekbone. It was quite large when I was a child, but started shrinking from about age 5 and fading from about age 8 (IIRC). It's been barely visible since about age 16. Friends made since then, and who've now known me for years, often don't realise that I have a birthmark until they happen to be standing beside me when I smile, and only then they may notice that the skin around one eye crinkles up slightly differently when I laugh.

The skin looks virtually exactly the same as the rest of my face, maybe slightly frecklier, and ever so slightly plumper there. Because it still protrudes very slightly, hairdressers sometimes catch the comb on it when doing my hair, but that's the only way in which it affects me. I've been told that it would probably have disappeared completely, had it not had 'treatment' to make it disappear when I was a baby. (Obviously the treatment didn't work so my parents stopped it.)

I can honestly say that it has never bothered me. I was bullied quite a lot in childhood and early teens, but oddly enough never about my birthmark. Perhaps because I was so comfortable with my strawberry mark that it didn't provide an effective target for the bullies.

SpanielEars · 16/08/2006 14:56

i don't know what makes people think that they have the right to comment anyway. There is no way that i would even dare mention to a mother the way their child looks!!

I think i am over sensitive though due to not understanding why she has it. I was told that they are common in prem babies (she was not prem) and i have been told they are caused by pressure. Well that would make sense as the registrar stuck the ventouse across her face on delivery trying to get her out and then proceeded to fracture her skull with the forceps causing 2 bleeds on the brain (they have thankfully gone leaving no developmental problems. Have any of you been told how you kids got them?

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Greensleeves · 16/08/2006 14:57

That is very interesting and reassuring to read Prettycandles. I have at times been out of my mind with worry about how ds2 will feel when he is older if it doesn't go away or if the plastic surgery leaves a scar. Not helped by the barrage of abusive remarks I attract, mainly from elderly people. I think it must be because the mark is near his eye - people have accused me of everything from punching him, burning him, throwing boiling water at him!!, dropping him - one man a couple of weeks ago remarked that he looked as though he had been hit by a train. I have had nice old ladies look at me with real shock and hatred in their eyes. Oddly enough when it looked like a purple golf ball it was more obviously a birthmark, whereas the more it involutes, it becomes flatter and more mottled, it looks more like an injury, and the comments have started coming thick and fast again. It's very hurtful. I hope he grows up like you PrettyCandles, with the self-confidence to carry himself whether he has a birthmark or not. But from where I'm standing it look daunting.

Sorry, I'm sure it's very obvious I am spitting with rage, that the perfectly safe and effective treatment which would have been available a few years ago has been withdrawn and I have, I believe, been lied to in the most insultingly simplistic terms about the reasons for it.

Will now stop hijacking thread and go take deep breaths

Bozza · 16/08/2006 14:59

Very interested in your post greeny. Sounds like there is a certain amount of concern and anxiety behind it. I know of a few children with strawberry haemangiomas in unproblematic areas such as on the back or upper arm. And I also researched them on the net at one point when my DS was mis-diagnosed with one at about 10 months.

Off subject but his was a granuloma (just below his eye) which arose from a scratch and I only took him to the doctor because of excessive and regular bleeding which had resulted in a lot of scabbing and dried blood. So basically it was hard to see what was going on below all the mess but surely the fact that it didn't appear until 9 months should have suggested that it wasn't a haemangioma. We went through quite a lot of trauma at the time trying to get him referred etc, trips to A&E because we couldn't stop the bleeding and finally an op just 2 days before his first birthday.

SpanielEars · 16/08/2006 15:02

thanks to you all for being really open about this. its been worrying me for a long time. I've just discovered this website and think its great that we can all chat. I didn't realise that there were so many people going through the same thing as me and DD. Its made me realise that i don't need to worry about it and that it is a part of her. Would love to set up stamp out those idiots who are so naive!!

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Bozza · 16/08/2006 15:02

at your second post greeny. The attitudes of the general public and the NHS (agree with your analysis of the situation) are dreadful.

Bozza · 16/08/2006 15:03

spanielears - just be glad that she had no other repercussions from that traumatic birth. Poor little thing.

SpanielEars · 16/08/2006 15:04

sorry that didn't make any sense. was supposed to say i wish we could set up a haemangioma awareness campaign to stamp out all the naive idiots who make horrid comments.X

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Greensleeves · 16/08/2006 15:09

It sounds very traumatic Bozza . I haven't heard of granulomas, but haemangiomas usually appear spontaneously within the first few weeks of life, and they don't usually bleed repeatedly. My understanding from reading is that they are not usually caused by pressure/skin trauma or perinatal injury, but often in babies who are going to develop a strawberry haemangioma there is a small flat bruise-like lesion called a "herald patch" present at birth - in babies who are bruised after a difficult birth this can be missed. This was the case with ds2 (shoulder dystocia, PPH, )

Apparently they are not "caused" as such, because they are not an injury - in the child with a haemangioma, the mark is "meant to be there" and "meant to involute in childhood" in the same way that the hair is programmed to grow and the eyes programmed to change colour in early infancy. The closest human tissue to that of the haemangioma is found in the placenta, interestingly.

It seems to be one of those areas of medicine which is poorly understood, poorly researched and there is a culture of under-informing patients/parents and using GPs as a buffer zone between the patient and the consultants who can decide to treat. It angers me more than I want to say on here - sorry, SpanielEars, if my outburst of invective has upset you or worried you. I am a bit of a monster on this topic.

PrettyCandles · 16/08/2006 15:12

I was often asked whether I had fallen off my bike, or whether my brother had hit me. We called it my Strawberry, and sometimes I pretended that we had squashed a large over-ripe strawberry on to my face.

If my parents did one thing right (and you know how we are all sure we could have done better - until, that is, we become parents ourselves) they managed to overcome their own distress at my birthmark and not pass any of it on to me.

In my late teens/early twenties, if I was out with my mum and she spotted a parent with a baby who had a strawberry mark she would drag me over to them and tell them all about me and my mark, and show them how it would fade.

AFAIK, I was over term, and unassisted delivery. The mark only started to appear 2-3w after I was born.

PrettyCandles · 16/08/2006 15:14

OMG, Spanielears, that's utterly awful. What an appalling experience.

Bozza · 16/08/2006 15:16

Your comment about GPs being a buffer zone was exactly what I experienced following the misdiagnosis. TBH we were lucky because once we managed to get referred by a locum everything was different and it was a matter of days to consultants appt and more days to operation.

A granuloma is when the body overreacts to an injury and rather than the correct healing process taking place, you get a collection of blood vessels forming outside the skin. DS's arose from a self-inflicted scratch. But obviously when it bleeds it bleeds and has it was positioned it was so easy for him to knock it when he was rubbing his eyes. It took two of us to dry him after his bath to prevent this. And after once finding him bleeding in his sleep I took to setting my alarm in the middle of the night to check on him. Of course, now he is a happy and healthy 5yo with a small scar on his cheek.

Mascaraohara · 16/08/2006 15:17

My dd has one

cowmad · 16/08/2006 15:21

I told my little one it was where the faries and angels had kissed her because she was so beautiful and occasionally she puts a bit of lipstick where she thinks it was to let the other kids know that she has met faries and angels!!
ooh an a swift fuck off to anyone you think is implying that you have hurt your child,DONT be polite,its really empowering try it!!

Mascaraohara · 16/08/2006 15:26

I find telling people it's a birthmark with a sickly sweet smile on my face and yet a withering look in my eye normally makes people cringe with embarrassment at their own ignorance.. that can be very amusing indeed.. especially if you leave a long pause..

Generally comments don't bother me, dd and I are chilled about it.. I dont expect people to know why my dd always had a large purple bump on her head just like I don't fully understand/appreciate things that haven't touched my life.

TBH I've found people who used to coo and exclaim "Oh has she had a bump" were only trying to make innocent conversation.

Greensleeves · 16/08/2006 15:32

Sadly Mascarahohara, it's not always possible to take that very generous attitude towards the comments people make, although I do try. When two old ladies walk past tutting and looking daggers at me, get a few feet past me and then one remarks to the other "Oooh, did you see the wicked bruise she's given that poor child...they shouldn't be allowed to have children, these women". I went home in tears after that one, and other equally charming encounters - I admire your "let's all be positive" stance and I do my best, but sometimes it's nice to be able to admit that it's horrible being treated like that by strangers who don't give you the chance to explain.

cowmad · 16/08/2006 15:33

go on try it!!