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" Jennifer Miller, 40, Indianapolis Throughout her childhood, Jennifer Miller, 40, dreaded the frigid Indianapolis winters and looked forward to the summers, when she&amp;#039;d soak up as much sun as possible. In her tweens, she routinely slathered on a homemade mixture of baby oil and iodine to get a darker tan. &amp;quot;It wasn&amp;#039;t socially acceptable in the &amp;#039;80s to have porcelain skin,&amp;quot; says Jennifer, a hair-salon owner and mother of two girls, ages 3 and 5. &amp;quot;My dad even encouraged me to be tan because he felt that my fair skin looked sick.&amp;quot; Skin cancer didn&amp;#039;t weigh on Jennifer&amp;#039;s mind, since no one in her family had ever had it. Once in a while, she used SPF 4 at the beach. Otherwise, she felt it was fine to burn a little, since the redness usually turned to tan. (This is a dangerous myth: According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, it only takes five or more sunburns in a lifetime to double your risk for melanoma. Jennifer has had at least 20 of them.)  When Jennifer was 16, she began going to tanning salons with friends at least once a week. &amp;quot;Tanning made me feel more attractive and physically healthier,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I absolutely think I was addicted.&amp;quot; For the next six years, she continued hitting the beds on a regular basis with little concern. The tanning industry claimed that salons were safer than basking in the sun \u2014 why would she doubt them? Then, in her mid-30s, Jennifer noticed an explosion of moles while pregnant with her first daughter; while carrying her second, some of those moles grew and became darker. Though she hated how they looked, she chalked them up to pregnancy and didn&amp;#039;t consider having the moles checked until Anita Day, a client at her salon who&amp;#039;d just lost two loved ones to melanoma, urged Jennifer to see a dermatologist. Strictly to appease her, Jennifer made an appointment in February 2008. During the visit, the dermatologist told her, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not really worried,&amp;quot; before removing three suspicious moles on her upper thigh, arm, and chest. A couple of days later, the doctor called: The mole on her upper thigh, it turned out, was Stage I melanoma. &amp;quot;It was terrifying to think that I had had cancer growing during my pregnancy,&amp;quot; Jennifer says. &amp;quot;The fear of not watching my girls grow was enormous.&amp;quot; Luckily, the melanoma was caught early and hadn&amp;#039;t spread. Today, Jennifer has a large scar on the front of her thigh where the melanoma and the surrounding skin were removed. She avoids going out in the sun midday, wears hats when she does, and gains extra protection by wearing mineral makeup over her SPF 50 sunscreen. (Many mineral foundations provide a natural SPF because they contain titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, which physically block the sun&amp;#039;s UVA and UVB rays.) Committed to educating others about the sun&amp;#039;s dangers, she now sells mineral makeup and sunless tanning wipes at her salon. Jennifer also teamed up with the organization Outrun the Sun Inc. \u2014 which Anita cofounded after both her father and a close family friend succumbed to melanoma \u2014 to help launch the Salon Stylist Education Program, which trains stylists to recognize potentially cancerous moles on clients&amp;#039; scalps.  At home, Jennifer makes sure her girls are well protected from the sun. &amp;quot;Everyone at their summer program knows that I&amp;#039;m a freak about sunscreen,&amp;quot; Jennifer says. &amp;quot;The girls have it on before they leave the house, and then the teachers reapply before they go out to the playground. I&amp;#039;m making sure that their summers are different from the summers of my childhood.&amp;quot;  FACT: If a woman develops melanoma while she is pregnant, she&amp;#039;s at very high risk of its recurring during another pregnancy. More on Skin Cancer &amp;amp;amp; Sun Care:  Is that Mole Skin Cancer? Spot the Signs. From Sunburn to Skin Cancer Dark Skin Isn&amp;#039;t Cancer-Proof Sunscreen 101: What SPF Really Means 5 Scary Facts About Tanning Beds "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/health-fitness/advice/a6253/skin-cancer-and-pregnancy/>