- published: 25 Aug 2014
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A bruise, also called a contusion, is a type of relatively minor hematoma of tissue in which capillaries and sometimes venules are damaged by trauma, allowing blood to seep into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Bruises can involve capillaries at the level of skin, subcutaneous tissue, muscle, or bone. A bruise may be named by the length of its diameter as an petechia (less than 3 mm), purpura (3 mm to 1 cm) or ecchymosis (1 to 3 cm), although these terms can also refer to internal bleeding not caused by trauma.
As a type of hematoma, a bruise is always caused by internal bleeding into the interstitial tissues, usually initiated by blunt trauma, which causes damage through physical compression and deceleration forces. Trauma sufficient to cause bruising can occur from a wide variety of situations including accidents, falls, and surgeries. Disease states such as insufficient or malfunctioning platelets, other coagulation deficiencies, or vascular disorders, such as venous blockage associated with severe allergies can lead to the formation of bruises in situations in which they would not normally occur and with only minimal trauma. If the trauma is sufficient to break the skin and allow blood to escape the interstitial tissues, the injury is not a bruise but instead a different variety of hemorrhage called bleeding, although such injuries may be accompanied by bruising elsewhere.
Natasha Anne Bedingfield (born 26 November 1981) is a British pop singer and songwriter. Bedingfield debuted in the 1990s as a member of the Christian dance/electronic group The DNA Algorithm with her siblings Daniel Bedingfield and Nikola Rachelle. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Bedingfield recorded rock and gospel songs for the Hillsong London Church, while Daniel went on to enjoy success with hits "Gotta Get Thru This" and "If You're Not the One".
Bedingfield released her first album, Unwritten, in 2004. The album contained primarily up-tempo pop songs and was influenced by R&B music; it enjoyed international success with more than 2.3 million copies sold worldwide and she received a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" for the title track "Unwritten". Bedingfield's second album, N.B. (2007), was less successful but yielded the UK top 10 singles "I Wanna Have Your Babies" and "Soulmate". N.B. was not released in North America, but six tracks from it were included with seven new ones and released in 2008 as her third studio album Pocketful of Sunshine, with the singles "Love Like This" and "Pocketful of Sunshine" earning success on the charts. In December 2010, Bedingfield released her third album in North America named Strip Me.