Incarceration of umbilical hernia in infants

Abstract Umbilical hernia (UH) is one of the most common conditions in infants and young children and usually closes spontaneously during the early years of life. Complications, such as incarceration, are rare. To the best of our knowledge, there have been only 35 cases of incarcerated UHs reported in children in the English literature. We present three cases of incarcerated UH in infants below the age of 1 year. A survey of the literature suggests that incarceration and strangulation tend to occur in infants younger than 6 months old with medium-sized (0.5–1.5 cm) UH rings, and that the mechanism may be the same as Richter's hernia. We conclude that guardians of infants with UH should be aware of the signs of incarceration.