Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Zoe is turning orange

Zoe has really gone for the jarred baby food recently, which contain a lot of carrots (check the ingredients). We noticed her hands, face and feet turning orange and asked our pediatrician. Apparently this is called carotenemia (caused by excessive ingestion of carotenes, which are present in carrots, sweet potato and other green and leafy vegetables), is completely harmless and reverses when the carotene consumption declines. We used to make her all homemade baby foods, but awhile ago she decided she didn't like our as much and prefered the jarred stuff. So now her hands are orange, her feet are orange, her face is orange and her butt is orange (and, as we use cloth diapers, her diapers are orange). Not bright orange (except the diapers); just a nice healthy hue. It is more common in people of light skin tone, which Zoe certainly is. A few extra beta carotenes won't hurt her though. We thought of trying to change her diet, but really what is the point? As long she is healthy and enjoying her food we don't think this one is worth worrying about- we got enough going on as it is. So we just laugh and say that Zoe is going through her orange period, like Piccasso had his blue period. Zoe also had a grey period, when she was first born, and a blue period when she was showing a lot of cyanosis. Compared with these a little bit of orange is no problem.

1 comment:

Genevieve Ross said...

You make it sound like she looks like a carrot! I think she is a lovely shade these days- the orangey hue hides the cyanotic episodes which can be stressful since it only reminds me about her heart and lung issues.