True fetal rickets.

Rickets has been recognized in the stillborn fetus and in the newborn infant of mothers with osteomalacia (Maxwell et al., 1939). Recently attention has been drawn to neonatal rickets occurring in infants of Asian mothers, with osteomalacia, living in the United Kingdom (Ford et al., 1973). We report a case of rickets which was diagnosed before birth; this diagnosis does not appear to have been made previously during intra-uterine life. The mother, a Pakistani, aged 30, had three children. Both the last two pregnancies, two and four years previously, were complicated by anaemia. She kept well during her third pregnancy, but at 37 weeks' gestation by dates, developed signs of toxaemia.