These investigations concerned 50 babies at the age of 34 to 47 weeks and two days. After local instillation of anesthetic drops, Schirmer-1-test was done. The average basal tear production was 5 mm +/- 3 mm in 5 minutes. This result was independent of absolute age of the babies, of birth weight, of the degree of maturity and of sex; there was no significant difference between right or left side.