Mom Wears Lipstick on Cheek to Support Baby Daughter with a Facial Birthmark
STUART CAMPBELL/CATERS NEWS
With one swipe of lipstick, Jessica Sands is hoping to mold the way her 7-month-old daughter, Madison, sees herself.
The mom from the U.K. has been adding a dot of strawberry-colored lipstick to her cheek in support of her baby, who has a facial hemangioma – a collection of blood vessels under the skin that form a lump – the Daily Mail reports.
“I chose to draw a strawberry mark on my face to show Madison that when she gets older she should show hers off with pride,” Sands says. “Wearing the mark makes me feel really proud like we are the same, she’s not seen as different as I look the same as she does.”
Sands, 24, first noticed the mark when Madison was a newborn and it eventually swelled into the hemangioma. This type of birthmark usually disappears by age 10, according to the Mayo Clinic, and doctors have told Sands that “there’s nothing to worry about with it and there’s only a need to get it removed if it puts pressure onto her eye,” she says.
Still, Sands wants her daughter not to be embarrassed by the mark as she gets older – a sentiment she wants to pass on to others as well.
“I hope that the positive way I view my daughter’s birthmark will influence both my children and other people in the world to love themselves and the way they look, even if it does not comply to society’s ‘perfect’ expectations,” she says.
