Patna: Health experts in Bihar are bewildered over an unexpected rise in birth of “alien” babies with bulging red eyes, fish skin and underdeveloped or no head. At least four such babies were born in this eastern Indian state since January this year causing alarm. No such cases were reported in the past.
The latest case has been reported from Katihar district of Bihar, more than 350km east of Patna. The baby which doctors say is suffering from “harlequin-type ichthyosis”, a very rare severe genetic disorder causing thickening of the skin, was born to Khalida Begum in the weekend.
People from faraway places are now making a beeline to the village to catch a glimpse of the baby with bulging eyes and small head. However, the 35-year-old mother is not happy. “When I saw the baby after delivery for the first time, I was completely shocked to see the alien-looking boy. My other children were born healthy without any deformity,” said Khalida, a mother of four children. She is refusing to keep the baby with her and doesn’t like to hold her in her arms.
The “alien story” first hit headlines in January when another Muslim woman from Paliganaj block in Patna district delivered a baby with a ‘weird’ look. The woman looked completely shocked and devastated. “That was not the baby I was looking for. I wanted to become a mother of healthy girl child, be it boy or the girl,” was how she described her plight to the media. According to researchers, the overall rate of “harlequin ichthyosis” is one in 300,000, but the state has seen the birth of a number of such babies in the past 90 days.
Another such baby was born at a nursing home in Bhagalapur district on February 24. According to reports in local media, the family got so much disturbed after this baby’s birth that they immediately fled the nursing home.
Yet another “alien” baby was born at a government hospital in east Champaran district on February 2. As per reports, the woman identified as Kanti Devi screamed out in fear on seeing her baby after birth — the newborn had big eyes but no head. Hospital authorities soon referred the baby to another hospital.
“They could be the result of genetic disorders, but we don’t know why there has been a sudden spurt in such cases in Bihar,” said Dr Brajnandan Kumar, a senior Patna doctor. He added the frequency of such cases was indeed a matter of grave concern for the doctors’ community and sought thorough research to bring out the truth.
As such, the first such case was reported from Nagpur in Maharashtra in June last year. The baby born to a farmer family at Lata Mangeshkar hospital weighing 1.2kg at birth was described by the hospital doctors as India’s first “harlequin baby” but since then there has been a sudden boom of “alien” shaped babies in Bihar — around 1,000km from Nagpur.
