Bullous dermatoses of pregnancy

Eight women had a bullous skin disease that occurred during pregnancy. One patient had clinical, histopathologic, and immunopathologic features of pemphigus. The other seven patients showed the features of herpes gestationis. Oral contraceptives reproduced the disease in the pemphigus patient and in one of the others. When the pemphigus patient was free of active disease, local intraepidermal acantholytic blister formation with deposition of IgG and C3 in the intercellular substance of the epidermis was induced by intradermal injection of progesterone.