Maternal intrauterine herpes simplex virus infection leading to persistentfetal vasculature

Herpes simplex virus can cause serious ocular and systemic disease in the n eonate. The mode of transmission to the neonate is usually from the materna l birth canal to the fetus intrapartum; but much more rarely, hematogenous transplacental infection can affect the developing fetus months prior to bi rth. Persistent fetal vasculature occurs when there is persistence of the f etal ocular vasculature, which normally regresses prior to birth. To our kn owledge, we report the first case of serologically proven intrauterine herp es simplex virus infection associated with bilateral persistent fetal vascu lature in a surviving term infant.