Perinatal Retinal Haemorrhages: Morphology, Aetiology and Significance

Retinal haemorrhage occurring during birth is a common feature in the newborn. There is no basic funduscopic or morphologic difference between this perinatal type of haemorrhage and that in the adult. The difference is that perinatal haemorrhage resorbs rapidly, within a few days, and no functional defects of retinal vessels are known. The fIrst observation of perinatal haemorrhage took place nearly 100 years ago. Many observations have been published in short papers; what was still lacking was a systematic pathogenic classifIcation of the different types of haemorrhage, a compari­ son of the perinatal type of other types of retinal haemorrhage, a comparison to other perinatal ocular haemorrhages, a detailed histologic description and a multi-faceted correlation of haemorrhage to aetiologic factors. The author has based his comprehensive evaluation on the observation of more than 400 newborn infants, the reexamination of several cases with macular haemor­ rhage, the histologic work-up of serial sections and the review of extensive literature. It is a remarkable fact that a physiologic process, birth, is related to this type of vessel rupture, which is present during a short period of postnatal life. In its complex analysis of these facts and conditions this book is particularly valuable.