CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE FOLLOWING MATERNAL RUBELLA DURING PREGNANCY

Abstract

IN THE year 1941 Gregg¹ called attention to the frequent occurrence of congenital cataracts in infants born of mothers who had had German measles in the early months of pregnancy. Many other investigations confirmed these observations, and within a short time it became clear that such infants frequently suffered not only from congenital cataracts but also from deafness, congenital heart disease, and mental retardation. Wesselhoeft² collected a series of 521 cases from the Australian, American, and British literature of infants born following maternal rubella during pregnancy, In this group he found that 221 had eye defects, 243 had impaired hearing, and 221 had signs indicating the presence of congenital heart disease. In spite of the fact that so large a proportion of these children have cardiac defects, we have been unable to find in the literature any study devoted specifically to a consideration of the various anatomic lesions