Mom Pens Blog Post to 'Change the Conversation' Around Her Daughter's Birthmark

— -- Katie Crenshaw's 7-month-old old daughter, Charlie, was born with a capillary hemangioma on her face, or a large strawberry birthmark. It's the reason why Crenshaw's friends and family kept asking, "What's wrong with her face?"

So the mother of two decided to pen a blog post -- which ended up going viral -- to explain why their comments hurt.

"It just started to be the topic of conversation anytime Charlie came up," Crenshaw told ABC News. "The reason why I wanted to call attention to it is because I did recognize that everyone had good intentions, but I wanted people to recognize that intent might not get you very far sometimes."

She added: "Even though they mean well, they needed to think about the words they're saying when they say, 'I hope it goes away,' or 'I pray it's different.' I would't walk up to someone and say, 'I'm praying that your child's ears gets smaller.'"

The Atlanta-area mother said that since writing her blog post she's received "dozens" of supportive emails from families going through similar situations. She's also received negative comments, asking why she and her husband Tyler chose not to remove the birthmark. Crenshaw explained there's a reason why.

"It's not just a mole you can scrap off," Crenshaw, 29, said. "Charlie's hemangioma is kind of intertwined and weaved around some muscles and behind her eye. Hers isn't the kind you can remove. It is not a threat to her health in any way and so unnecessary surgery wouldn't have been an option for us. And the nature of this kind of birthmark is that it'll eventually ... shrink on its own so I didn't think to rush that process."

Instead, Crenshaw said she hopes to "raise her [child] with confidence" and strengthen her family's support system.

"That's why it's so important to change the conversation and change how they speak around her because that will be the key to how she deals with people's opinions of her," Crenshaw explained.

Crenshaw said that her daughter, who has an "extremely charismatic personality" and is an "old soul," won't necessarily have a hard time growing up.

"[If you're] visually different that ... is not a guarantee that you're going to live this tortured life. I don't believe that. I don't believe that ... she's going to be bullied or picked on," she added.

"I encourage people to look at differences as normal and not unusual and really just think about the words they're saying."