Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
a number of retrospective studies have reported positive associations of certain neurological and psychological dis¬ orders in children with maternal complications of pregnancy and delivery and with prematu¬ rity (1-12).On the basis of these findings it has been asserted that there exists a continuum of reproductive casualty composed of a lethal and a sublethal component.The former con¬ sists of abortions, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths.The latter consists of cerebral palsy, epilepsy, mental deficiency, behavioral dis¬ orders, reading disabilities, and, possibly, ties in children.Another condition studied, child¬ hood speech disorders, was not found to be associated with abnormalities of pregnancy and delivery or with prematurity (13).This series of studies stimulated interest in the perinatal period and its possible etiological role in many diseases.Yet no attempt seems to have been made to repeat any of the studies.This paper is, in part, such an attempt and relates to the study on epilepsy (2) first re¬ ported by Lilienfeld and Pasamanick in 1954.That study was chosen because it was fairly
Henderson et al. (Wed,) studied this question.