Obstetrical Paralysis Due to Ischaemia of the Spinal Cord.

Obstetrical paralysis after a difficult labour is usually attributed to tearing or stretching of the nerve trunks of the brachial plexus or to avulsion of nerve roots from the spinal cord. Injury to the cord itself, however, is not excessively rare (Ford, 1960), the principal findings at necropsy being subdural or extradural haemorrhage, laceration or rupture of the cord, or a haematomyelia. In the case described here, paralysis of both arms at birth was found to be due to necrosis of the grey matter in the cervical part of the spinal cord, a condition that does not appear to have been described previously.