Moebius syndrome: A rare entity or a missed diagnosis?

Abstract

Moebius syndrome is a rare congenital neurological disease, nonprogressive in nature, characterized by weakness or palsy of multiple cranial nerves, most often the sixth and seventh cranial nerves. Third and twelfth cranial nerves are also frequently involved. Infants presenting with similar presentation are often misdiagnosed because the facial palsy is commonly attributed to other causes such as birth trauma. Here, we present a 6-week-old infant presenting with poor weight gain and feeding problem, ultimately stamped as Moebius syndrome on the basis of clinical findings suggestive of multiple cranial nerve palsies without any apparent cause.