India gets its first ‘Harlequin baby’

India saw its first recorded case of a ‘Harlequin baby’ a name given to babies born with Harlequin Ichthyosis after a farmer and his wife in Nagpur gave birth to a pre-term baby with hardened skin. 

She weighed 1.2 kgs at birth and is blind and deaf. She has only two holes for a nose, and her whole body is covered with cracked hardened skin. 

This rare genetic mutation causes a baby to be born without any perceivable skin and only one of three lakh children get affected by this rare condition. 

The baby who is at present in Lata Mangeshkar hospital, in Nagpur is being treated by a team of doctors to ascertain her state of health. Her mother is yet to know about this rare condition that her daughter is born with this rare genetic disorder. 

"Harlequin ichthyosis is a very rare severe genetic skin disease. In such cases, the child's whole body is encased in an ’armour’ of thick white plates of skin, separated with deep cracks. Also, the eyes, ears, private parts and the appendages may be abnormally contracted," Dr Avinash Banait, a member of the team of doctors told the Indian Express. 

A paediatrician from the team said that such babies are prone to infection as their internal organs are exposed. They are keeping her skin moist by applying petroleum jelly. For now, they are not sure whether she even has eyeballs. 

According to doctors, such cases are detected during prenatal testing and the fetus is terminated after its detection. However, the farmer and his wife couldn’t afford a prenatal screening, and they went ahead with the pregnancy.