In rare instances a child is born with skin larger than the body it is made to cover (Fig. 1). The skin is otherwise clinically and histologically apparently normal. Being larger, it must necessarily hang in folds. This is essentially the pathology of the so-called cutis laxa. This condition goes under many names besides cutis laxa, which is the commonest. I believe that a more appropriate name for it is dermatomegaly.
It is a rare prenatal disorder, similar, but only in appearance, to the common (acquired) increase in size of the skin which follows increase of subcutaneous fat (Fig. 2) or to physiologic senile involution (Fig. 3).
Comment
Dermatomegaly, used in the same way as hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, or acromegaly, is proposed as the best term to describe the rare pathologic disorder of the newborn in which the skin is bigger than the body surface it is intended