Hemangiomas

Written by Afton Mower

“What’s that big red spot on your baby’s head?” You’ll probably get that question every time someone sees your baby for the first time. A hemangioma is a large red bubbly spot somewhere on your baby’s head and it looks a lot like a giant blood blister. Despite how it looks, it doesn’t hurt your baby and it is not harmful to your baby. I never learned exactly why my baby had one except that my doctor said they could be common in preemies.

I was told by the doctors and nurses in the NICU, and by my pediatrician at home, that the hemangioma on my baby’s head would simply get smaller and then fade away, probably around age 2. They said that it might change a little bit over time or even get slightly bigger or smaller. Well, it did exactly that. Sometimes we would notice that it had bubbled up on one side and then later that spot had faded away. From about 18 months it started to get smaller and less noticeable almost every day, until one day we realized that it was gone, right around her 2nd birthday! It was pretty amazing, actually. Now, I can still find the spot where it was, because there is an extra amount of dark flaky skin there, but that too is going away. Our girl never had any problems with it, it never hurt her, and the doctors were never concerned about it.

My baby was so bald while she was young that often we tried to cover her hemangioma with a little bow or headband, but it never really bothered me. In fact, it was just a part of my baby’s looks and I thought it was kind of cute. We called it her little strawberry, and sometimes people thought it was a red bow on her head until they got a closer look at it. My baby’s hemangioma was right on the top of her head, and the only other one I’ve seen was actually on a kid’s forehead, and he wasn’t even a preemie.

In these pictures you can see the hemangioma on my baby’s head. Take a look.