Low-birth-weight and congenital rubella syndrome: effect of gestational age at time of maternal rubella infection.

Birth weights of 42 full-term patients with congenital rubella syndrome were analyzed. All of these infants were products of pregnancies in which the exact dates of the maternal first day of last menstrual period and of the time of onset of the mothers' rubella rash were known. The range of time of maternal rubella associated with low-birth-weight was in the gestational age interval from 16 to 100 days. Low-birth-weight may have a relationship with time of maternal rubella rather than with the type of defects, i.e., cataract, heart disease, and deafness.