Congenital pneumonia is one of the leading causes of neonatal deaths. In this work we assess the possibility of using post- mortem magnetic resonance imaging for the diagnosis of congenital pneumonia. The study was conducted on 21 neonate bodies. Before the autopsy, MRI scanning was performed on the Magnetom Verio 3T system (Siemens, Germany) in T1 and T2 standard modes. The resulting images were used to analyze signal intensities of lung tissue, pleural fluid and air. Airiness index was computed as the ratio of pleural fluid signal intensity to lung tissue signal intensity. Then, the autopsy was performed. Based on the histological analysis results, the main and the control groups were formed. The bodies of 9 neonates who had died from congenital pneumonia were included into the main group; the control group consisted of 12 dead neonates with no signs of pneumonia. On T1-weighted images, the signal intensity from the lungs of the infants with congenital pneumonia was higher by 26.5 % in the left lung and 12.9 % in the right lung, compared to the controls (p >0.05). On T2-weighted images, the corresponding figures were 23.7 and 31.2 % (p >0.05). The sensitivity of the method is 77.8 %, specificity is 75.0 % and diagnostic efficacy is 76.2 %.