Annular erythemas in infants associated with autoimmune disorders in their mothers. Report on three cases.

Three infant boys with a centrifugal annular erythema mainly consistent with erythema annulare centrifugum, developing a few weeks after birth, are described. The lesions disappeared before the age of 6 months, without atrophy, and during this period the infants were otherwise healthy. This group is considered to belong to one of three types of reactivity in infants associated with or expressed as a connective tissue disease, especially lupus erythematosus, in the mother and child or in either. In type 1, signs and symptoms of systemic lupus erythematosus are or will be present in the mother and the child displays discoid lupus erythematosus lesions at birth or soon after. In type 2, the mother has the same signs and symptoms as in type 1 but the child develops a centrifugal annular erythema 3-6 weeks after birth. In type 3, discoid lupus erythematosus is present at an early stage in the infant, while the mother is healthy. This type may represent an early onset of lupus erythematosus in the infants.