Group B Streptococcus can cause disability and death in newborn babies.

Group B Streptococcus and Childbirth

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is passed immediately prior to or during birth from the mother to her child. GBS is the primary cause of bacterial infection in newborns. Every year around 700 are infected with it; 75 will die from septicaemia caused by the bacteria.

For babies affected after four weeks - when the bacterium usually presents itself as meningitis - the figures are even more grim: around one in ten die and a third of the survivors are left with significant brain damage. GBS can also cause premature births, stillbirths and maternal infections (putting the mother's health at serious risk).

What is so frightening about this is that a third of pregnant women carry the bacterium but don't realise it. In fact a third of all adults carry the GBS bacterium - it doesn't affect them, but it is fatal for foetuses and babies. It's also not clear why some babies are more susceptible than others.

A SWAB TEST COULD SAVE YOUR CHILD FROM STREP B

A simple swab test routinely carried out in America and Australia in the latter stages of pregnancy could establish whether a mother is a carrier of the bacteria. Although many women carry the StrepB bacterium, guidelines for midwives do not make informing mothers about it an essential part of antenatal care and, as a survey from Pregnancy and Birth Magazine revealed, a shocking nine out of ten pregnant women had never heard of the deadly bacterium. This is all the more extraordinary because StrepB affects more infants than Down's Syndrome or Spina Bifida - and it is treatable. Also the tests taken for Down's and Spina Bifida, are for information purposes only - the conditions can't be 'cured'. However, if a test reveals you carry GBS, a simple dose of antibiotics should ensure that the baby is unaffected.

OFFICIAL LINE ON WHY STREP B TESTS

The official line is that GBS tests are not cost effective. A National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) spokesman said: "NICE's recommendation is that pregnant women should not be offered routine antenatal screening for GBS because evidence of its clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness remains uncertain, unless they have sypmtoms of Strep B as they then would be tested." A Department of Health spokesman backed this statement up also.

The test currently available on the NHS (although not routinely available), called the HVS or High Vaginal Swab - is thought to be only 50 per cent accurate because of the way the swab is cultured in the lab. However, there is a far more accurate method available which takes both a vaginal and rectal swab specifically for GBS. This is the one used in America. It can be obtained privately in the UK at a cost of £32 (it's been estimated it would cost the NHS around £10 to offer it). This test should be performed around the 35th and 37th week of pregnancy and tests show it can indicate likely infection for the next five weeks - up to and including term delivery.

In 2002 the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) issued screening guidelines and now the NHS screen mothers who fall into certain high risk categories, such as showing signs of StrepB in urine or having had a baby previously infected. But some critics say this isn't enough. They point to the success of the screening programme in America, where women identified as carrying GBS are given a simple dose of penicillin during labour. This practice has brought down the GBS infant infection rate by 75 per cent. In Australia, after routine screening in 1994, the rate fell by 75 per cent and in Spain the rate was an even more dramatic fall of 86 per cent.

FOR more information on StrepB in pregnancy go to www.gbss.org.uk or call 0870 803 0023

The Doctors Laboratory offers the StrepB test; call 020 7307 7373.

DR. CHRIS'S THOUGHTS: "I'm a doctor, my wife is a midwife and I think it's just disgraceful that this test is not made available to pregnant women. We test pregnant woman for all sorts of condition that are very rare, like Syphillus, Aids, Downs, Spina Bifida but yet we don't test for Strep B, it's ridiculous. It''s not even very expensive."
This content was created on Wed 3 January 2007

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