Uncommon virus infections of the mother, fetus, and newborn: influenza, mumps and measles

Abstract

The literature contains reports of epidemics of varying sizes, which in the aggregate suggest that congenital malformations are not attributable to maternal measles infection during pregnancy, that the incidence of prematurity may be somewhat higher among infected mothers, and that the incidence of abortion also may be somewhat higher. Before the introduction of measles vaccine in this country, the universality of childhood experience rendered adult infection a rare event. Gestational measles was thus uncommon. With the introduction of measles vaccine, these numbers can be expected to have decreased substantially.