PARAPLEGIA OF PREGNANCY (SUBACUTE COMBINED DEGENERATION OF THE CORD)

Abstract

Of the neuropsychiatric episodes of pregnancy, the best known are the psychoses. Aside from accidental cerebral complications (hemorrhage, thrombosis, embolism), disturbances of the central or peripheral nervous system proper, that is, pure organic nerve lesions, are relatively rare. For the most part the lesions are in the peripheral nerves and are classified either as pressure neuritis—that is, they result from pressure by the pregnant uterus on the sacral plexus—or as polyneuritis. Lesions of the spinal cord are uncommon. According to Hosslin,1who enumerated nearly every conceivable disease of the spinal cord as a possible direct or indirect complication of pregnancy, the most frequent form seems to be transverse or compression myelitis. However, neither Hosslin nor later observers (Berkwitz and Lufkin,2for instance) described subacute combined degeneration of the cord as a complication of pregnancy, regardless of the fact that pregnancy is frequently associated with anemia. So far as