Appearances

Most babies, when delivered, don’t look like what you see in a magazine. Babies have been crammed up in a water-filled uterus for months. After the journey down the birth canal, sometimes their appearance can be affected. 

Common features of newborns

• Acrocyanosis – bluish color on hands or feet
• Vernix caseosa – right after delivery, your baby will be covered with this protectant from the amniotic fluid
• Lanugo – fine hair on a newborn
• Head molding – an abnormal head shape that results from pressure on the baby’s head during childbirth
• Cephalohematoma – the unnecessary pooling of blood from damaged blood vessels that is between the skull and inner layers of skin
• Stork bite – a pink patch that can appear on a baby’s forehead, eyelids, nose, upper lip or back of the neck
• Milia – tiny white bumps on a baby’s nose, chin or cheeks
• Peeling skin – shedding the outer layer of their skin within one to three weeks 
• Cross-eyed – eyes that wander or cross now and then as newborns learn to work their eyes together
• Swollen genitals – Due to the surge of female hormones from the placenta before birth, genitals (scrotum and labia) are often swollen, including their nipples