Fetal and maternal features of antenatal bacterial infections

Abstract

Of 1,044 consecutive autopsies on stillborn and newborn infants, 23 per cent demonstrated the presence of congenital pneumonia, often associated with chorioamnionitis. Negro and Puerto Rican patients had higher rates of the disorder than Caucasian infants, and ward patients a higher incidence than private and semiprivate patients. Clinical features of infection and the recovery of pathogenic bacteria from maternal reproductive and urinary tracts were significantly associated with the congenital pneumonia, the predominant organism being the same from mother and infants in half of the jointly cultured cases. The existence of nonbacterial, as well as bacterial, chorioamnionitis and pneumonia is suggested by the finding that in 37 per cent of the infants with congenital pneumonia no pathogenic organisms were identified.