[What's new about the fifth day seizures syndrome? (author's transl)]

This paper concerns 37 newborns who suffered clinical seizures from their 24th h till their 10th day of life, excluding post-anoxic seizures or convulsions leading to death. Continuous or repeated EEG recordings were performed for all babies: 25 infants had electro-clinical recorded seizures, 12 children did not have another convulsion after admission. This work allows us again to isolate a group of 18 newborns who presented the clinical and EEG features described as the 5th day seizures syndrome: term babies, appearance of first seizures between the 4th and 5th day, very frequent status epilepticus, almost constant inter-ictal 'sharp alternating theta' tracing, immediate spontaneously favourable evolution. A long-term follow-up was done on this group (18 children) and on the initially described group of 20 children: only 2 children had seizure recurrences, essentially febrile seizures, in spite of lack of long-lasting anticonvulsive therapy.