“Why are mosquito bites little red bumps?”
At the risk of inciting another unusually severe snowstorm, I’m going to open this blog post by commenting that aside from a few days in October, we’ve been enjoying a relatively warm fall this year. And as a result, The Four-Year-Old sported mosquito bites well into November.
One day, after I (gently) batted The Four-Year-Old’s hand down from scratching at two bites on her face, she asked:
“Mommyo, why are mosquito bites little red bumps?”
According to How Stuff Works, that little red bump is how you know your immune system is on the case.
When a female mosquito has had her fill of you* (approximately 5 microliters of blood per serving), she departs, leaving behind trace amounts of saliva under your skin. The proteins in that saliva are the reason mosquito bites are so itchy.
Your body’s immune system immediately sets to work removing those proteins. As it does, the area swells, making that little red bump. The bump will go away in a few days, but the itch remains until every last bit of saliva protein is destroyed.
You can help your immune system along by washing mosquito bites with mild soap and water, and by doing your best to not scratch the bites to reduce the risk of infection. (Good luck with that. If our experience at Caterpickles Central is any guide, this is nearly impossible, even with the help of calamine lotion.)
*Did you know that only female mosquitoes bite? The males drink plant nectar.
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[…] had an unseasonably mild winter up here. Maybe the fact that The Five-Year-Old was still struggling with mosquito bites in November clued you in. Or maybe it was the complete lack of complaints about snow (and the requisite snow […]
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