Newborn Pediatric Visit

While I was still pregnant I went on a Pediatrician scavenger hunt. It ended up being one of the easiest parts of our preparation for parenthood. I asked a trusted Chandler mommy source for her advice and she recommended Mesa Pediatrics. Turns out their new office was literally across the street from us. Moreover, my brothers and I had gone to the original Mesa Peds office when we were kids. I met with our future pediatrician and absolutely loved her. She trained at PCH, spent a year as a chief and has her MPH from U of A. She is perfect!

We were instructed at the hospital to make an appointment with our pediatrician the day after we got back from the hospital because Enler had a slightly elevated bilirubin (break down product of hemoglobin - the blood component that carries oxygen). We were in a new parent daze but excited to introduce our new little man to our new pediatrician.

It was at this appointment that his diagnosis of port wine stain was confirmed and when we first started talking about treatment and surveillance options. Our pediatrician said we didn't need to worry about setting up any appointments now but could discuss future options at our one month visit. She told us we'd need to schedule an appointment with the opthamologist first. This was necessary because port wine stains can be associated with congenital glaucoma (increased pressure in the eye with accompanying vision changes). The likelihood is increased when the birthmark is above the palpebral fissure (the eye opening). Enler only had a small part of his birthmark in that area so chances were less likely - but enough to necessitate an eye appointment.

We had the opportunity to ask all of our burning questions. Why did Enler get this birthmark? Was it anything we did? Is it genetic? How prevalent are port wine stains? Our pediatrician addressed all of our questions. Port wine stains occur in 3 out of every 1,000 people (which made Graham think "wow, what a special little guy we have"). We were relieved to hear it was not something we did and they don't really know if its genetic. When she said that she wasn't sure if its something that Enler could pass on to his kids, I got very weepy (thanks to the pregnancy hormones). The thought of my new baby having his own kids one day drove me to happy, proud tears.

Walking out of the appointment we felt confident that his medical condition had been addressed and he would be well taken care of by our pediatrician. It was at this point that the dialogue between Graham and I truly began about what to do as far as treatment. What are our options? Do we look into laser treatments? Or do we just leave it? We spent time researching on the internet, in our baby and pregnancy books and I even pulled out some old textbooks from medical school.*

As my research developed I found some journal articles that discussed the advantage of early laser treatment for port wine stain. A few well designed studies found that treating earlier led to better results with fewer number of laser treatments. The results described included complete resolution of the birthmark to significant lightening of the birthmark. With this information, and the other research we had done, Graham and I decided we wanted to proceed with a dermatology consult. Because I would be returning to work soon I called our pediatrician before the one month visit to arrange the consult. She had also been doing more research on port wine stain treatments and agreed with a earlier rather than later consult with dermatology.

* It was helpful having experience in medicine to navigate our web search. It was amazing the things that came up in our Google search, including some scary pictures and some ones that had no relevance to port wine stains at all!