Pale skinned people in too strong sunlight develop folic acid deficiency which in turn causes birth defects. This is probably the main reason paleskins cannot thrive in tropic regions without supplements, at least for pregnancy.
Also true — I had managed to temporarily forget about neural tube birth defects in general and anencephaly in particular (do not look that up unless you are extremely resilient to body horror that makes Cronenburg look like an amateur).
Nevertheless, I think "my skin burned and blistered" is a bit more immediate with the painful feedback, even if it's not as extreme.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate_deficiency