Screening small for gestational age babies for congenital infection

The widespread practice in newborn nurseries of screening asymptomatic small for gestational age (SGA) babies for TORCH infection has been evaluated. In a retrospective review, we found that, in 1979, in our nursery 23 (35%) of the sixty-six SGA babies were investigated for TORCH infection. No asymptomatic baby was investigated adequately to exclude infection. The two proven cases of congenital infection were both apparent on other clinical grounds, and neither would have been detected by our routine serologic screening. A review of published information on asymptomatic TORCH infections showed that, in the absence of other clinical signs of infection, intrauterine growth retardation is an unusual manifestation. Clinical investigation of TORCH infection should be confined to those babies with other clinical evidence of infection.