This shocking image shows a baby girl born from an incestuous relationship covered in a parchment-like substance and with her eyelids turned inside out.

The baby – who has to be fed with the stomach tube – was diagnosed by medics in Egypt as suffering from collodion baby syndrome, also known as sausage skin.

The condition is the early stage of Ichthyosis, a genetic disorder characterised by dry, scaled skin that needs to be kept constantly moisturised to stop it hardening.

It also typically results in tight skin, which in the eye results in the eyelid being pulled inside out in a condition known as Ectropion.

Experts at the Al-Mahalla General Hospital, in Gharbia Governorate, said that the genetic disease was the result of the parents being closely related.

However, they did not specify what the blood relationship is between the couple.

They simply described it as a consanguineous marriage, which is typically a marriage between two blood-related individuals who are most typically cousins.

Although not incest, it is closely related and in many societies condemned because of the risk of genetic abnormalities such as the disease suffered by this little girl.

Dr. Khaled Talaat, Director of Paediatric Intensive Care at Tanta University, said the baby suffers from difficulty breathing and needs round-the-clock care.

He said: “The child will need to be kept in a room with high humidity and closely monitored if this is not to get worse.

“There was a completely sterile environment to make sure no infection enters the body and lots of moisturising cream.”

Dr. Osama Bulbul, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health in Gharbia, described it as a one-in-a-million case, and it was the first one ever in the region.

He confirmed that the cause is believed to be the close relationship between the parents.