Harlequin Disorder: Nagpur Baby Born With ‘Hard Thick Skin’ Dies

She was born with ‘Harlequin Ichtyosis’, a disorder that leads to the formation of unusually hard, thick skin.

The child’s whole body was encased in an ‘armour’ of thick white plates of skin, separated with deep cracks. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Punjab Update)

This story has been republished with corrections.

A baby girl born in Nagpur, Maharashtra on Saturday with unusually hard thick skin caused by a rare genetic disorder, passed away on Monday. The condition is termed ‘Harlequin Ichtyosis’.

Harlequin Ichthyosis is a rare genetic mutation in which the whole body is encased in an ‘armour’ of thick white plates of skin, separated with deep cracks.

The child was born to a farmer-couple in Wadi, at the Lata Mangeshkar Hospital. She was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and was being attended to by a team of doctors.

Both the parents carried the mutated genes that causes the disorder.

Harlequin ichthyosis is a very rare genetic skin disease. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Punjab Update)

Doctors confirmed that the baby’s internal organs were hardly visible. Her palms, fingers and toes barely developed. She had two red swabs for eyes and two holes for a nose.

The baby’s body was donated to the NKP Salve Institute of Medical Sciences (NKPSIMS) for research purposes on Monday night.

There have only been around a dozen such recorded cases in medical history since 1750.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the disorder as lack of an external skin.

(With agency inputs)