Mongolian blue spot mistaken for child abuse

im really sorry to hear about this incog. its not happened to me but people have insinuated my boys blue spot on his back and bum is a result of a bruise/heavy handness and it makes me livid that people could jump that fast to conclusions. blue spots usually occur on asian or african children and i cant believe your paeds didnt believe in them. i would immediately change your paeds, no one should ever judge that fast wow. sending love x

I personally haven’t, but I have some kind of deformity with my arm from birth where one of my forearms is smaller & appears bruised on the inside. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s extremely rare & at my first check up they took me off my mum straight away. Immediately accused her of causing harm, called social services etc etc and it took days for them to realise. They were made to apologise, but I can’t imagine how scary that must’ve been.

@Kayleigh I’m really REALLY lucky I took her straight to hospital instead of a gp. Although when I did take her to her gp, she was an old woman who immediately recognised the Mongolian spot? If I wasn’t in hospital I’d have had to have waited 3 months for a dermatology outpatient appointment… they would’ve taken our baby away for 3 months. I can’t even cope with that thought

@Ashleigh it never worried me until now, I feel genuinely terrified now. Such an awful experience

@Hannah Diribe-Iosub my health visitor is coming out next week because she forgot to take note of all of her Mongolian spots. I wouldn’t mind but I tried showing them pictures of her as a newborn and they said they can’t accept mobile phone pictures as evidence because I could’ve doctored them…. I was like “what could I have possibly doctored them???” Like I was able to do photoshop behind my back or something in the 10 minute consultation 🙄

I’m so sorry this happened to you that’s absolutely terrible I hope you are ok x

@Genevieve thank you, I think I’m slowly being less anxious about it. I keep reminding myself that they have all the pictures now and the dermatologist confirmed their birth marks so I won’t have to go through that again. But it was just horrible being treated like a criminal on top of worrying they weren’t taking the “rash” seriously. Really really glad she’s not sick though

I have.the hospital discharge notes said "congenital dermal melanocytosis", which is the new term for the Mongolian spot. However the Health visitor clearly wasn't aware of the new terminology and asked us to book a gp visit asap to confirm it....we didn't go as our lead midwife before discharging us said to ignore her and apologised for her oversight. The health visitor kept chasing and asked for a written proof asap which of course we did send a copy of the hospital duscharge notes..

@Ana-Maria that’s what my midwife told me too, they changed the name to be racially sensitive? But the go called it a Mongolian spot anyways. It was just the paediatrician that didn’t think it was a blue spot. The dermatologist took photos and put them in her file tho thank god. So should have to go through that hell ever again

@Harrie social workers were honestly the most understanding, they were the ones reassuring me that there’s no evidence of abuse besides a blue mark and that the dermatologist would know if it’s a birth mark so not to worry. The paed not knowing was insane though. Now I’ve calmed down I do understand they were just following protocol but I absolutely think they completely overreacted.

Update: We are not the only family she has done this to. She once missed a baby and now jumps to the conclusion every baby with marks is abused. I will be reporting her for her bedside manner and her failure to investigate my child’s rash and her unprofessionalism (insulting dermatology) and for reporting us a BEFORE we had even been seen by dermatology. This will be on my babies record forever. And the other family had their children temporarily removed from them. We were very lucky but also very unlucky.

My Bestie her child has one and it is documented that he has a Mongolian birthmark so that they don’t think this. mine also has it it’s not really noticeable. Honestly, I kind of forgot where it is, but they mentioned it to me at the hospital and they said they were going to document it so that nobody ever thought we were abusing him

@Kaitlin I wish someone had done this for us, they just assumed doctors would know what it is I guess - it was dismissed very quickly though so I’m happy about that

I'm so sorry this happened. My daughter has them too and luckily my midwife knew about it and made sure she wrote where they all were in the delivery notes. Though she did break her collarbone in childbirth which wasnt picked up by health professionals until I mentioned it at 5 different appoingments (2 weeks later). They also investigated me and then realised the xray showed that it was an old fracture (in line with her date of birth) as it had already partially healed. It was so traumatic, I can really feel your pain. Please dont let it cloud your experience 🩷 unfortunately health professionals have to take everything very serious with kids nowadays, but they should definitely be educated about blue spots! Make sure it's in her red book and signed by a healthcare professional so this doesnt happen again!

@Sapphira my health visitor made sure to note every single blue spot on both my children and put them into their medical notes and red book. One of the paediatricians blamed her in the meeting and said that it was her fault I was being investigated. Which realistically, a paediatrician should absolutely be able to reek the difference between a bruise and a blue spot - literally every other health professional could 🙄 But I’m glad we did that just to make sure it doesn’t happen again

My sister in law experienced this with her first baby. They had to go weekly to a doctor to have photos taken to document what were birth marks just in case anyone at her daycare happened to report her for child abuse. I thought it was insane this could happen. Her daughter’s marks are no longer visible now that she’s a few years old. Idk if it’s something she just grew out of or what but as a baby she had very distinct marks. I can’t imagine going through this but would recommend looking into documentation you can have that states these are natural and not bruises.

@Samantha when I went to the hospital a medical photographer took pictures for her file, they usually fade at around 6 months old. Sometimes later! Just a bit exhausting