Maternal and neonatal neutralizing antibody titers to selected enteroviruses

Neutralizing antibody titers were determined at term for 98 matched mothers' serum and neonatal cord blood pairs, to coxsackieviruses B2, B3, B4 and B5 and to echovirus 11. The reciprocal of the geometric mean titers of maternal sera were, respectively, 15.3, 18.1, 53.5, 14.1 and 11.4. The geometric mean titers of cord sera were statistically lower for coxsackie B5 and echovirus 11 (P less than 0.031 and p less than 0.005, respectively) than those in maternal sera. The percentage of neonates born with antibody titers less than 1:10 to coxsackieviruses B2, B3, B4 and B5 and echovirus 11 ere 49, 37, 17, 53 and 69%. Thus a large percentage of neonates in our community are born with low titers of enterovirus-neutralizing antibody, which for some infants may be disproportionately lower than maternal titers to selected enteroviruses. Commercially available immune serum globulin contains high titers of antibody to these enteroviruses and may be a useful means of passive antibody acquisition in susceptible neonates at risk for enterovirus infections. However, a single dose of immune serum globulin intramuscularly produced little change in circulating neutralizing antibodies to coxsackie B4 and echovirus 11 in seven neonates.