Everything there is to know about birthmarks

Your baby may have surprised you from birth with a pink, red, purple, or café au lait spot on the skin, or it has gradually appeared on her skin. Either way, you wonder if there is a need to worry about this birthmark, if it requires special treatment or if it may ever go away. At first, rest assured, these birthmarks turn out to be harmless in the majority of cases, you will simply have to monitor them a little more closely if they are located on the face, and in particular near the eyes and the mouth.

What are the different types of birthmarks?

To recognize the stain on your child, first know that there are two types of colored marks that can appear on the skin from birth:

• pigmented birthmarks, which, as the name suggests, comes from a build-up of pigments under the skin. More or less dark coffee in color, they are generally safe, but you can of course have your baby watched, especially if these colored marks are more numerous over the years. Mongoloid spot, very common in Asian and Mediterranean babies, is also found in a bluish-brown color, which is usually located on the lower back. It is nothing abnormal and will wear off as your child gets older.
• vascular birthmarks, called infantile hemangiomas or angiomas, originate from an overgrowth of dilated blood vessels under the skin, forming capillaries, but their origin is not yet fully understood. It could then be a plane angioma, purplish red in color, like wine stains or cravings, more or less extensive, or a tuberous angioma in relief on the skin, such as strawberries, for example. red in color. Whatever your child's angioma, it will need to be monitored by a doctor or dermatologist to monitor its progress.
  Your infant may also display small red spots on the forehead or on the back of the neck at the base of the hair: these are egrets, which will generally disappear in a few months.

Are birthmarks for life?

This is often the question parents immediately ask themselves when they see a spot appear on their baby's body or especially their face: will they have to keep it for the rest of their life? Depending on the different types of spots, the evolution of the size and intensity of the color may vary.
This way, some pigmentation birthmarks may fade over time, and others may stay the same for the rest of your child's life.
As for hemangiomas or angiomas, they can disappear in a few years without specific treatment or intervention. But the doctor who will follow your baby will be able to advise you as and when the evolution of an angioma such as a wine stain or a strawberry which may take more and more relief, or which turns out to be more in addition unsightly, or which is poorly positioned, on the face for example. A very effective treatment with a beta-blocker or laser treatment may then be recommended, which will reduce or even eliminate the angioma. Laser treatments have come a long way in recent years, and give very satisfactory results. They make it possible, in several steps, to clear up the blood vessels at the origin of the wine stain thanks to a small beam of light which works small area by small area. Surgical treatment remains quite rare.
In all cases, children must protect their hemangioma with sunscreen if it is exposed to the sun, so that its color does not gain intensity yet.

What about moles in all of this?

If we do not call them birthmarks, moles are nonetheless marks on the skin, more or less large pigmented brown spots, which are located all over the body. They are more seriously referred to as nevi, but every mom is sure to think that the term moles seems to fit their baby better! Nevi usually appear in adolescence and adulthood but can also stick out in childhood. You can also have them monitored by your doctor to be on the safe side.

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Video by Loïcia Fouillen