Cytomegalovirus infection: congenital and neonatal disease.

The risk of a susceptible woman acquiring CMV infection in pregnancy is about 1% and of those who are infected about 40% will deliver infants with congenital CMV infection. About 5% of the infected infants will have manifestations of CMV infection in the newborn period and the prognosis for this group is poor. A high proportion will later manifest serious permanent sequelae including neurological problems and in particular, sensorineural hearing impairment. A further 5-10% who are normal in the neonatal period may develop problems relating to their CMV infection but the majority of asymptomatic infants will be intellectually and physically normal. CMV-associated defects have been reported in infants born to women who had a recurrence of CMV in the pregnancy despite previous evidence of immunity. The risk of damage following recurrent infection is likely to be small.