NEWS: A mother with black skin has given birth to three white children.

By SHAUNA ANDERSON

When this mother goes out with her children she is often mistaken for their nanny.

Strangers take one look at her black skin and the whiteness of three of her children and assume that the group are not related.

Take a look for yourself. It is hard not to double take. This amazing family are the result of a genetic lottery which has produced three albino siblings.

Rosemere Fernanda de Andrade told the documentary Body Bizarre that when she first saw her daughter Ruth she thought the hospital had made a mistake.

“I thought someone was playing a trick on me and had switched my baby with a white family’s.”

Rosemere, from Recife in Brazil, was only 18 when she had Ruth and said that the reaction from her neighbours was distressing.

“The neighbours began making comments about Ruth, asking if she was diseased.”

“They even suggested Joao wasn’t the father and I had been with someone else. It made me angry.

A year later she gave birth to her second daughter named Estefani  – who was also Albino – and Ruth realised what the genetic lottery had dealt her.

“The doctors explained that both Joao and I must carry a gene for albinism and so each time we had a child there was a one in four chance the child would have it,” she said.

She has since gone on to have six children – three of them with the rare genetic condition -and three of them with black skin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKLbZ8GrChU

She told The Mirror that people simply can’t get used to the way her family looks.

“When I am with my children I get strange looks because we look so different.

“Once I was leaving a shopping centre with Ruth and Estefani and a security guard asked where their mother was.”

Ruth is now 14, Estefani is 12, and son Kauan is nine.

For the three living with albinism is difficult.

The condition means that the children have little or no pigment in their eyes, skin, or hair. They have inherited altered genes that do not make the usual amounts melanin.

The three are so sensitive to sunlight they can not play outdoors during the day and must always wear sun protection even when inside. They also have a life long high risk of melanoma.

Rosemere told the documentary that when they were younger, before she understood the condition, there were occasions when their skin would bubble from sunburn.

“It can happen so quickly when the sun is fierce. Now I know not to let them into the sun after 10am. If they have to leave the house I make sure they wear long sleeves, hats and plenty of sunscreen.”

The three siblings also suffer from vision impartment – a trait of albinism – which has led to teasing at school.

Ruth said, “They call us four eyes because we wear glasses.”

Rosemere said that the prejudices faced by her children was a daily challenge.

“It used to make my angry but I am learning people need educating about what albinism is.”

For more information on Albinism in Australia visit this website.