A woman has spoken out about the “devastating” consequences of mistaken infant bruising diagnoses after her six-month-old son’s blue spot markings were thought to be bruises. Laxmi Thapa, a woman of Nepalese origin who resides in Basingstoke, said she felt like a criminal after being arrested when medical staff and police followed procedures for suspected child abuse after being referred to Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital. It was later found out that the marks were blue spot markings, and misdiagnosis of this kind can be “devastating” for innocent families, according to campaigners.
Ms Thapa had taken her baby to the doctor after certain indications made the blue spot markings on her baby’s body darker and he had more marks. Her baby’s existing blue spot, sometimes known as Mongolian blue spot, had been noted in the medical records following his birth eight months previously. Basingstoke police arrested Thapa when she was admitting her baby to the hospital.
The hospital looked after her baby while she was being held in a cell at Basingstoke Police Station for 20 hours until release pending a medical report, and a social services home visit later deemed that her son was not in danger. A series of scans uncovered no skeletal injuries, and a dermatologist detected the markings as blue spot markings rather than bruises.
Police say they are automatically involved in child safeguarding issues, and Independent child protection researcher Dr Bernard Gallagher said it was an “appropriate expectation” for agencies to intervene when child abuse was suspected, it is however a difficult balance to strike. Campaigners have called on better awareness of the presence of blue spot markings among paediatricians and in child protection teams
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