Hi everyone! Here's a picture of me when I was one day old in the hospital. After the doctor checked me out, they told my parents that the small red dot on my back was a special birthmark called a hemangioma. The doctor said it would get worse before it got better. By the time the nurse came to visit me the following week, it was about the size of a quarter and raised. At the two week checkup it had grown even bigger. Although this scared my mom and dad, it was totally normal. Hemangiomas grow for the first six to twelve months so I'm still considered to be in the growth stage. They are also called strawberry birthmarks because of their red/pink color. Hemangiomas are composed of lots of blood vessels and are a vascular anomoly. The doctors told us that no one really knows what causes them but one of the theories is that it could be a part of the placenta that broke off and attached to the skin. Hemangiomas will naturally shrink and fade in color over time and we were told about 50% of them involute by kindergarten and about 90% by middle school. Recent advances have made it possible to remove them surgically but my mommy and daddy are not sure if this would be something they want me to go through.
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