Infections in childhood and pregnancy as a cause of adult disease--methods and examples.

Infection in childhood can occur in utero, perinatally or in postnatal life. Infections at these ages can have profound effects on anatomical structure and on developmental processes of a number of systems. These effects may lead to adult disease directly or increase the susceptibility to factors later in life. The detection of such childhood infections may be difficult once adult disease has developed. In this chapter we described the type of epidemiological evidence that might suggest such a situation and give examples of infections known to cause adult disease which illustrate these patterns.