Varicella infection in pregnancy

To the Editor: Pastuszak and her colleagues (March 31 issue)¹ report embryopathy in 1 of 49 infants born alive after first-trimester maternal varicella. In the meta-analysis of their own results and those of four comparable published studies, they calculate a 2.2 percent aggregate mean rate of congenital varicella embryopathy among such live-born infants. Their Table 4 shows the fetal risk for the congenital varicella syndrome in each study. However, according to the references cited, only 1 of 145 cases in the table involved defects typical of the syndrome. The authors' case may be added, but it is not clear whether.