Congenital syphilis

Congenital syphilis
Notched incisors known as Hutchinson's teeth which are characteristic of congenital syphilis
Classification and external resources
Specialty	infectious disease
ICD-10	A50
ICD-9-CM	090
DiseasesDB	12744
MedlinePlus	001344
eMedicine	ped/2193
MeSH	D013590
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Congenital syphilis is syphilis present in utero and at birth, and occurs when a child is born to a mother with syphilis. Untreated early syphilis infections results in a high risk of poor pregnancy outcomes, including saddle nose, lower extremity abnormalities, miscarriages, premature births, stillbirths, or death in neonates. Some infants with congenital syphilis have symptoms at birth, but many develop symptoms later. Babies exposed, in utero, can have deformities, delays in development, or seizures along with many other problems such as rash, fever, hepatosplenomegaly, anemia, and jaundice. Newborns will typically not develop a primary syphilitic chancre, but may present with signs of secondary syphilis (i.e. generalized body rash). Often these babies will develop syphilitic rhinitis ("snuffles"), the mucus from which is laden with the T. pallidum bacterium, and therefore highly infectious. Rarely, the symptoms of syphilis go unseen in infants so that they develop the symptoms of latent syphilis, including damage to their bones, teeth, eyes, ears, and brain.

This is a subset of cases of congenital syphilis. Newborns may be asymptomatic and are only identified on routine prenatal screening. If not identified and treated, these newborns develop poor feeding and rhinorrhea. By definition, early congenital syphilis occurs in children between 0 and 2 years old. After, they can develop late congenital syphilis.

Symptomatic newborns, if not stillborn, are born premature, with hepatosplenomegaly, skeletal abnormalities, pneumonia and a bullous skin disease known as pemphigus syphiliticus.

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