Causes and Prevention of Birthmarks
A birthmark is often called a strawberry mark, vascular skin change, angioma cavernosum or a capillary hemangioma/simplex. These marks are usually red in color and related to the vascular skin markings or blood vessels, and develop before or shortly after birth.
Causes of Birthmarks:
- Birthmarks are pigmentations on the skin. The most common vascular birthmark is known as Hemangioma and this is a painless and harmless type of pigmentation. The cause of hemangioma is not known but the color results from the extensive development of blood vessels at the site.
- The strawberry marks may be absent at birth and develop at several weeks after birth, growing rapidly, or remaining at a fixed size, but these usually subside over a few years. The majority of strawberry hemangiomas disappear by the time a child is 9 years old, even though there may be a slight discoloration or puckering of the skin where it had previously existed.
- Cavernous hemangiomas are the angioma cavernosum and are similar to strawberry hemangiomas, though more deeply rooted. These appear as a red-blue spongy mass of tissue filled with blood and usually disappear over a period of time.
- A flat hemangioma is a port-wine stain made up of tiny blood capillaries; these usually appear on the face. The size of the flat birthmark varies from very small to over half of the body surface and is mostly a permanent defect, which may cause significant emotional distress to the person suffering from it.
- Salmon patches or stork bites are small, pink and flat birthmarks and usually 30 to 50 percent of newborn babies are afflicted with these. These are small blood capillaries that are visible through the skin, most commonly appearing on the forehead, eyelids, upper lip, between the eyebrows and the back of the neck. These become more noticeable when the infant cries or during temperature changes and often fade as the infant grows.
Prevention of Birthmarks
There is no known way of preventing birthmarks and all birthmarks need to be examined by a health care provider to judge their probable outcome, the course of action and possible complications (if any) arising from them.
Treatment of Birthmarks:
Birthmarks may cause affected persons emotional distress because of appearance and compels people to go in for herbal or natural remedies to rid themselves of these unsightly pigmentations.
- Eat food that has antioxidant nutrients selenium and vitamins E, C and A (or beta-carotenes) since these control free-radical damage in the body.
- Increase consumption of fresh, raw fruits such as kiwi, apricot and cantaloupe several times a day as these are excellent sources of vitamins A and C.
- Including raw wheat germ with your morning cereal is the best dietary source of the powerful antioxidant vitamin E and also provides selenium. Other foods with selenium are whole grains, nuts and sesame seeds. Eat only organically grown foods, which have higher selenium content.
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