Why the marks upset us
She came home with small marks on her hands and feet from everything that had kept her alive, and we wanted them gone quickly. Looking back, that urge was not really about her skin.
It is worth saying, because the honest version is useful: the marks were a visible record of a month we had found very hard, and making them disappear felt like it would close something. They faded on their own schedule and the closing happened separately.
What actually helps
Very little, and that was our experience rather than a shrug.
Time does most of it. Keeping the skin moisturised with something plain and unscented is reasonable. Keeping fresh marks out of direct sunlight matters, because new skin pigments unevenly in sun and a mark that would have faded can be set darker.
We looked at them constantly, which meant we never saw them change. A monthly photograph in the same light was what finally showed us they were fading.
That shift — from daily inspection to monthly comparison — applies to most things about her skin, and it took the heat out of it. The marks were going. They were just going at the speed skin goes at.
Look monthly, not daily
A few left a faint paler patch that is still faintly there. For a while that bothered us more than it should have.
She doesn't know about them. Nobody who meets her notices. And they are from a hospital that looked after her when she needed it.
Call your doctor immediately if
A floppy baby you cannot wake — call your local emergency number now.
- A mark becomes hot, swollen, spreading or weeping
- Pus, a crust spreading outwards, or a red line running away from the site
- She has a temperature of 38°C or above, or any fever under three months
- She's floppy, very hard to wake, or unusually unlike herself