A BABY girl has been born prematurely with an extremely rare, incurable condition that causes her skin to grow seven times faster than usual.
A 28-year-old woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, gave birth to the youngster at a government-run hospital in Patna district of Bihar, in eastern India over the weekend.
The baby has a disease called harlequin ichthyosis, which causes widespread and persistent thick, dry, “fish-scale” skin.
The parents, who are said to have been traumatised by the birth, reportedly called the child “a curse” and refused to accept her.
They took the child home, but the mother reportedly doesn’t want to hold or feed her.
“I have no idea how this happened. Me and family are completely devastated,” she said.
“I am in shock as I was really looking forward to becoming a mother of a healthy child, be it a girl or a boy.”
Within hours of the news of the girl’s birth broke, scores of locals flocked to the hospital to have a glimpse of her.
Doctors were forced to intervene to remove the number of people gathered outside the hospital to see the baby.
Local media have reported that girl was born at 32 weeks, instead of 36 weeks.
What is harlequin ichthyosis?
- Ichthyosis is a condition that causes widespread and persistent thick, dry, “fish-scale” skin.
- There are at least 20 different types of ichthyosis. Some types are inherited at birth and other types are acquired during adulthood.
- There’s no cure for ichthyosis, but a daily skincare routine usually keeps the symptoms mild and manageable.
- Most people with ichthyosis have inherited a particular faulty gene from their parent. The signs and symptoms of inherited ichthyosis appear at birth or within the first year of life.
- The faulty gene affects the rate at which the skin regenerates – either the shedding of old skin cells is too slow, or the skin cells reproduce at a much faster rate than they can shed old skin. Either way, this causes a build-up of rough, scaly skin
- Ichthyosis vulgaris is the most common type of inherited ichthyosis, affecting 1 in 250-1,000 people.
- Harlequin ichthyosis is extremely rare, but the scaling is severe and requires intensive care at birth.
- There’s no cure for ichthyosis, but moisturising and exfoliating the skin daily can help prevent dryness, scaling and the build-up of skin cells.
- People with severe ichthyosis may need to spend several hours a day caring for their skin.
- People with mild ichthyosis have a normal lifespan. However, the most severe inherited types can be life threatening.
Source: NHS Choices
The Times Of India also states that the child was delivered naturally at 6am on Saturday.
“There was no problem during the delivery of the baby. The baby, who weighed around 2.50kg, even cried after her birth,” Dr Chaudhary, who was involved with the labour, said.
“We sent a child specialist to her home on Sunday and he reported that she was drinking milk. However, we have referred her to Patna Medical College and Hospital.”
Doctors believe the girl won’t survive for long as none of her organs have developed properly.
The probability of survival of such cases is only one in ten million.
The rare genetic condition called harlequin ichthyosis causes thickening of the skin and facial deformities.
A doctor said this is probably just the second reported case of harlequin ichthyosis in India.
The first case in the country was reported in June last year when a woman gave birth to a child with harlequin ichthyosis at Lata Mangeshkar College and Hospital in Nagpur.
The baby survived for just 48 hours.
“Such infants are prone to various infections because skin is not there to protect them,” said Dr A A Hai of Patna, adding that survival has also been reported in certain cases.