POLIOMYELITIS OF THE NEWBORN

Abstract

OUR INTEREST in this subject was aroused by the death of a month old infant from the bulbar form of poliomyelitis in 1948. Clinical manifestations appeared at 2½ weeks of life after contact with an uncle acutely ill with poliomyelitis. Since that time we have observed 2 infants who had acute poliomyelitis in the newborn period, that is, in the first two weeks of life. We felt that a brief report of our experience with these 2 cases would be timely, as medical teaching generally has held that this disease does not occur in the newborn period because of immunity transmitted to the infant by the mother. A review of the literature on poliomyelitis in the newborn revealed reports of 10 cases. Of these cases, 4 were reported as instances of "intra-uterine poliomyelitis." The reports of 3 of these cases¹were based on histories taken two, thirty-two and fifty