Cysts of the oral mucosa in newborns: a clinical observation.

Nodules or cysts of the oral mucosa occurred with an incidence of 88.7 per cent in 541 Japanese newborn infants. No infant was over 8 days old. This incidence is higher than that reported in Caucasian and Negro newborns. It may be suggested that the frequency of visible nodules have a close relation to growth and development in the fetal life, because the cysts seen in newborns can be recognized histologically in most fetuses, as demonstrated in other papers. Although a variety of terminology for these nodules have been used, these oral cysts can be classified as follows: gingival cyst in the newborn (dental lamina cyst) and median palatal mucosal cyst (Epstein's pearl).