This morning it is my task to review with you the routes by which infection may reach the fetus and newborn infant, and, further, to consider the principal types of infection which we see in this period of life. I will start out by saying that the baby may become infected before birth, during delivery, and in the neonatal period. In this presentation I will limit my discussion chiefly to prenatal infections because they have occupied more of my attention and because they are less well understood and appreciated than are the infections which are acquired in neonatal life. This does not necessarily imply, though, that numerically these infections are more important than those which the baby acquires during delivery or in the neonatal period, of which we will hear more in the subsequent presentation.
As I go along this morning it will become evident that two principal classes of