Group B Strep in Pregnancy

Group B Strep (GBS), otherwise known as Streptococcus agalactiae, can cause serious, sometimes fatal infections in newborn babies. Pregnant women in Canada are routinely screened by a vaginal swab for Group B Strep at around 35-37 weeks gestation. Guidelines for Group B Strep positive women recommend IV antibiotics during labour to prevent infection for the baby.

A positive test for GBS is very common (25-30%). It isn’t very common for babies to contract it, especially if the mom does the IV antibiotics during labour. The rate of GBS infection is only approximately 0.4 babies per 1000 births, and only 10% of those babies infected die from it.

Your best bet is to do the IV antibiotics during labour. Prior to that, taking a good quality probiotic can help. Probiotics are the good bacteria that normally populate the vagina and which the baby will pick up at delivery. Keep your immune system healthy with diet, sleep, stress reduction, exercise and be sure to breast feed. Breastmilk, especially the first milk called colostrum, is full of antibodies that will help keep the baby healthy and fight infection.

You can also use a vaginal probiotic. There are specific strains of probiotics that benefit the vagina and help prevent Group B Strep from being able to take hold. Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Lactobacillus gasseri are two such strains.

Here is some relevant research, the second study specifically studied the effect of lactobacillus rhamnosus on streptococcus agalactiae (group B strep).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22437191
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24469557