Babies are born every day and it is a very common occurrence. In most cases, the birth of a child goes without much fanfare outside of the close circle of family and friends that may have followed the pregnancy from the beginning. From time to time, however, a child is born and he manages to captivate the attention of people worldwide.
That was the case with this baby boy who was born with a beautiful head of gray hair. His name is Bence and other than the fact that he has gray hair, he seems to be perfectly normal, happy and healthy. The childbirth was relatively uneventful and it went along as expected without many surprises. Before long, however, people realized that this little baby was quite extraordinary.
It wasn’t his weight, nor was it his height that took the doctors by surprise. It was the fact that his head was full of white hair and it made him quite different than other babies. As a matter of fact, his white hair was so striking that he was even given a nickname by the nursing ward, Prince Charming. As you can imagine, there was a lot of discussion as to why the child had a headful of gray hair, but you will be happy to know that it was not a sign of an illness. In addition, it didn’t have anything to do with prenatal stress.
The first place that the doctors started to look was the possibility for albinism, which is a genetic mutation that can affect the hair, skin and eye color. The Mayo Clinic puts it this way: “Albinism includes a group of inherited disorders that are characterized by little or no production of the pigment melanin. The type and amount of melanin your body produces determines the color of your skin, hair and eyes.”
The interesting thing is that the melanin pigment was missing from Bence’s hair but there wasn’t any sign that he was missing pigment from any other parts of his body. His white hair did gain him a lot of attention among the nurses and it is expected that is going to grow darker as he gets older. It is assumed that is a temporary pigment shortage.
Our young Prince Charming took a number of routine tests following his birth. There was also blood work done to ensure that there weren’t any other issues with pigment deficiency. In the end, Bence is a healthy baby and he is expected to go about his normal routine.
That is not true of Bence’s mother, however, who seemed to be quite stressed out after the birth. When she has some time to relax, however, perhaps she will be able to get into a regular routine as well.
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