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Where
I work no-one is swabbed. If a woman is in labour for twelve hours she is
commenced on IV antis without knowing her GBS status. There are no other
interventions, unless labour is premature, when a HVS will be taken. It's
interesting the variety of practises out there! I would prefer to swab women pre
labour, and then we could do away with the IV antibiotics. An IV, even
one that is bunged off, is a pest to maintain in
labour.
Nicole.
PS I
have not seen a baby with clinical obvious Grp B strep in 5
years.
My
daughter was GBS pos. Had IV antis in labour but the staff wanted her to stay
in fir observation of bub. She was basically told the baby would die if she
took her home. I said what rubbish. The last two places I have worked if
mum was GBS pos, had had IV antis in labour ( at least 1 dose four hours
before the birth) then apart from the odd temp check we just observed bub.
Unknown status was only worried about if the membranes ruptured 24 hours. Then
IV antis offered. Given that the swab isn't 100% accurate and mum be
negative for the swab and colonise a day later why bother scaring women?
I have had 2 cases this year where a woman
chose not to have the strep B swabs done antenatally. For whatever reason we
transferred from home to the hospital for birthing. The staff wanted her to
have antibiotics because the step B statis was unknown. Both times the
mothers refused.
Both times the hospitals then swabbed the
babies, said something along the lines of 'we have found 'something' unknown
that could be strep b" they then recommended commencing 48hours of IV
antibiotics until blood cultures can prove otherwise( that it is not Strep
B).
Because of the fear involved, the mothers chose
to have the IV antibiotics for the bubs. Blood cultures came back on both
babies negative for strep B.
Scary as it is, I relate this story to my
clients and let them decide if they want the strep B swab or
not............guess what they choose??
Sad huh
Robyn
Dempsey
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- RE: [ozmidwifery] Strep B Nicole Carver
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