Objective: We present infants at our institution presented with action tremor with onset weeks to months later after birth and otherwise similar to neonatal jitteriness.

Background: Several benign movement disorders in infancy have been described including neonatal jitteriness, benign neonatal sleep myoclonus, shuddering spells, and others.

Method: A retrospective chart review included three patients of interest and phone survey was completed to evaluate patient’s long-term progress.  We also reviewed the charts of and phoned two patients with similar tremor noted in the first hours to days of life, consistent with neonatal jitteriness.

Results: Five patients presented to the pediatric movement disorders clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital with similar episodic, proximal, irregular, large-amplitude tremor, with onset between the first hours of life and two months of age with episodes lasting seconds up to 30 minutes while awake, without association with feeding/sleeping.  Body parts involved usually included the arms but sometimes legs and jaw.  Average length of follow-up has been 32.8 months.  All patients demonstrated typical development, and resolved between 4 and 10 months of age without recurrence.

Conclusion: We propose that the three patients with episodic tremor onset weeks to months after birth represent an expansion of the phenotype previously referred to as neonatal jitteriness, as demonstrated by the near-identical tremor characteristics seen in the two patients with tremor seen hours to days after birth.  We suggest the term benign infantile tremor syndrome is more appropriate to describe this  common benign movement disorder that presents in infancy and resolves within one year in typically developing children.

« Back to MDS Virtual Congress 2020

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/benign-infantile-tremor-syndrome-bits-a-new-movement-disorder/