Mongolian blue spot

[Zinger]

MarsLady I just came across your story (in this thread ) about your hv telling you your baby's mongolian blue spot was a sign of abuse!

DD still has hers at nearly 10 months and I've always found it really sweet.

My son had one when he was born, we were told it could have been from either his mediteranian or asian heritage.

Before discharging us, the paediatrician pointed it out and took plenty of time to explain it. She stressed not to let anyone including HVs tell us it's a bruise and it faded by the time he was about 6 months old.

Husband still has one, though it's very tiny.

my eldest son had a mongolian blue spot, the day after he was born a suspicious MW called in the Dr for an immediate examination, after a simple question (what nationality was his father) the Dr gave the MW a good telling off and she went back with head lowered to report back to colleagues. Now i feel sorry for her after all my son was pure white with ginger hair how was she to know he was mixed parentage.

By the way they usually disappear by the time the child's 5, my sons did and it was very prominent looking like a great big hand and finger print over his buttocks.

The Dr did a detailed drawing of the blue spot and sent a copy to the GP and HV to prevent any further mix up, i thought that was a brill idea, what a great Dr for spotting it for what it really was.

this was 16 years ago though, can't believe people are still reacting this way this time later, do some things never change, of course it's OK to have suspicious but for goodness sake they should get all the details first.

My year old Niece has just be diagnossed with MGS and I couldn't work out why my bro and sister in law asked if they could borrow my camera but having read your advice above I think that documenting it at this early stage is a good idea because you never know who may get involved if people, in their ignorance, believe the "bruising" to be caused by abuse . Thanks girls (by the way Eli is mixed race - her mum's half greek half west indian)

My year old Niece has just be diagnossed with MBS and I couldn't work out why my bro and sister in law asked if they could borrow my camera but having read your advice above I think that documenting it at this early stage is a good idea because you never know who may get involved if people, in their ignorance, believe the "bruising" to be caused by abuse . Thanks girls (by the way Eli is mixed race - her mum's half greek half west indian)

My year old Niece has just be diagnosed with MBS and I couldn't work out why my bro and sister in law asked if they could borrow my camera but having read your advice below I think that documenting it at this early stage is a good idea because you never know who may get involved if people, in their ignorance, believe the "bruising" to be caused by abuse . Thanks girls (by the way Eli is mixed race - her mum's half greek half west indian)

sorry i posted 3 times my machine flipped out

My DS (6mths) has a huge MBS all over his lower spine and over his buttocks. I was aware of this before his birth as I had looked after a few asian children prior to having him. It's something that I don't even notice now but I have had several incidents where I have had to fully explain that it wasn't a huge bruise. Last time was a couple of weeks ago at baby massage class where the instructor used my baby to show the other mothers some technique or other. You could have heard a pin drop when the instructor removed his nappy and put him on his tummy, there were also several gasps. Luckily she was a qualified midwife and explained what the mark was to the other shocked mummies! :)

We had to ask the HV to make a note of it on our notes and she was disgusted that they hadn't spotted it at the hospital. She said that these days it really should be noted very early on.

my neice had a mbs and so did my brother(her dad).we are wholly white family.is this weird?

Not weird, Alexsmum, but genetically, gives a strong indication that somewhere, your family, like millions of other apparantly white families is not, indeed, 'wholly white'.
There's a wonderful (black) American artist called Adrienne Piper who has done lots of work challenging notions such as white supremacy and any form of racial separatism on the grounds of her research into how very very many families of all races have some degree of multi-racial history.
I am white, no question, but we have MBS in our family, and at my first ante-natal visit, the MW (african) looked at me closely and said 'are you sure you're caucasian?' I said yes apart from having MBS in the family, from my grandmothers Moorish /gypsy background, and she put me, genetically, in the 'black' box for blood tests such as sickle cell and thassoleamia (?).

My ds has a MBS. It's the first on either side of the family, and I was the only one who had ever heard of them! Every health professional who saw ds in his first 6weeks or so was keen to tell me about it and 'reassure' me - not that I needed reassuring . I've always put it down to Attila the Hun (or was it Genghis Khan - the one that was stopped at the gates of Vienna anyway) rampaging his way across Eastern Europe and doing something dreadful to one of my ancestors.

But interestingly, it was one of the factors that made my gyne decide to test me for Thalassaemia during my second pregnancy. The only time that anyone has thought that the MBS had any significance.

I'm amazed at this thread. And all because I complained about my hv. Wow!

it's really interesting.I am very fair, but my brother ,who had the mbs, is so dark.Almost black hair,olivey skin,dark brown eyes. He is the double of my dad's side of the family, who are all fair but have the same features if you see what i mean. He has two daughters, one blonde haired , blue eyes, one very dark like him and its her who has the mbs.My maiden name is a 'jewish'name so who knows.....?

Well, this is fascinating stuff. I know that on my paternal side several generations ago I had a GreatGG etc grandmother who was Bengali. And on my maternal side there has always been talk of a Spanish/Portugese woman marrying into the family in the early 19thC. Also, dh's family have lived in India for generations so I imagine any or all of these could account for dd's mbs.

The connection with thallassaemia is also very interesting. Ds2's gf has thalassaemia so presumabley if the two of them decide to have a family it might be a good idea if ds gets tested beforehand in case he also has it and they are at risk of sickle cell in a baby. Or am I barking up the wrong tree, here?

my ds has 2 mongolian blue spots. my dad is half vietnamese. he told me i shouldn't worry and that it was 'vietnamese' to have them when ds was born. also my hv is chinese and knew exactly what we were. i cannot cannot cannot believe that there health professionals living in multi ethnic communities that don't know about this...it's totally outrageous and makes me

This is a very interesting thread ...
My mother is a (white, afrikaans) south african and you can imagine the furore when she was born with a MBS in 1939. My grandmother told everyone that she had fallen down the stairs the day before she gave birth ...
My mother's family were all very fair and blue eyed but she is very very dark and was an 'embarrassment' to her family in some ways. When she was a little girl she had to wear a bonnet "As the child is black enough already" ... I can tell you that it feels awful writing this down as it seems so shocking that people actually had/have that attitude. My mum rebelled and in the '60s became a sun worshipper and went 'blacker' much to her mother's dismay. My mum has black tightly curled hair and deep brown eyes and people have mistaken her for mixed race before.
Bear with me as there is a point to this story ... so, all my mum's children (me and my siblings) are fair with light eyes. My parents left South Africa in the early '70s as they couldn't bear the attitudes of apartheid.
Anyway .... my DS was born 5 years ago ... very blond and blue eyed. DD was born in February this year and she had a very marked MBS on her bottom ... I didn't get any funny looks as we live in NZ and this is a VERY multicultural society and so all the midwives and everyone knew what it was. A midwife did comment on my DH's and my 'whiteness' and that it was unusual for a white couple to have a baby with a MBS. 10 minutes later she met my mum and it all made sense.
So ... what I am saying is that mum is clearly what she calls a 'throw back' of her ancestors' past in the days when mixed race relationships in SA were not taboo and DD (who has ginger fluff on her head and dark mossy brown eyes) has inherited that too ...
Phew ... sorry to go on so long but I wanted to share our story.
Am very that so many m/w in the UK (in my mind a very multicultural country too) do not know what the MBS is ...
G xxx

i have heard of these but never seen a piccie until now and i have to say they look remarkably like a bruise

They do indeed - but midwives and HVs should surely be expected to know about them, especially in a multicultural society like ours, shouldn't they?

They do indeed look like a bruise, hence the reaction of people who don't know about them. The number of people who have looked at me as though I was some kind of monster whilst I've been changing one of my children at the swimming baths. Then of course there was my idiot hv. Still, once you know what they are you don't jump to conclusions quite so quickly.

Heavenlyghost, that's where my Bengali ancestor comes into our story! My dad was born in SA and is of S African descent.

I don't think sickle cell and thalassaemia are the same thing (insert 'derrrr' icon here - I used to have a brain and a memory, now I have a ds and a dd instead). IIRC, sickle is predominantly African, and thal (I'm not trying to spell it any more! ) is predominantly Mediterranean. Jewish, plus problems tolerating a relatively small drop in blood iron level in previous pregnancy, plus ds having MBS led to them testing me for thal trait. They tested dh at the same time, as it takes two thal traits to create the risk of thal in the baby. Dh came up clear - he's English through-and-through, whereas they couldn't rule out thal trait for me.

Thanks for that. Tbh, I think I've confused myself, lol!! Having just googled, I think the problem is that two carriers can have a child with thalassaemia major, which is pretty serious, and there is also an outside chance of a sickle cell/thalassaemia disease if one parent carries thalassaemia and the other a haemoglobin S trait gene. All a bit complicated for a Saturday evening!

when my brother was born in the 60's, apparantly they were testing him for blood disorders because they thought he had been born with bruising.

this is absolutely facinating and triggered a memory of my baby brother now 20 yrs old having one at birth, we are hispanic/scottish. the facinating aspect of it is that my racist Mom just stopped him having a relationship with a Black girl for racist reasons mmmm, so why did my brother have this mark? mmmm interesting looks like we are not directly descended from the conquistadors or the Maya indians after all

My 18mo ds has one on the base of his spine. It's showing no sign of fading. No one has ever questioned it. I thought all health professionals were familiar with this but seems not judging by some of these posts.

Jenny, Mayan Indians have the mongol spot as do all native americans. just curious which country in Central America does your Maya heritage come from? I am part Maya myself. I have a similar racist granny too.