The Administration of Antibiotics To Avoid Group B Strep Infections in Newborns

An expectant mother who is a carrier of the group b strep can pass on the bacteria to her child during labor even when the mother does not present any symptoms. Research have shown that from fifteen to forty percent of pregnant women have Group b strep. Without intervention, an infant born to a woman who with GBS has a one in two-hundred possibility of developing a Group B Strep infection. By administering the proper antibiotics when she enters labor labor the likelihood that she will pass the group b streptococcusGBS bacteria to her infant is diminished by 2,000%.

To be able to identify which pregnant women should be administered antibiotics during labor, expecting mothers without any symptoms are tested for group b streptococcus approximately from the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh week of the pregnancy. Getting tested for GBS is a simple process. Because the bacteria mostly colonizes inside the urinary and vaginal tract of the woman, a swab is used to get a sample. The outcome of the test are usually accessible in forty-eight hours.

In the event that a baby develops a Group B Strep infection but is not treated immediately, the infection could develop into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. Due to the fact a newborn's immune systems is not fully developed, the infant may be left with lifelong physical and neurological damage that may prevent the child from ever living a normal life. And of the roughly seventy-six hundred children each year who become infected with gorup b strep ten to fifteen percent do not survive.

Given the serious threat a group b streptococcus infection presents for infants, doctors examining an infant who has symptoms consistent with a GBS infection and whose mother tested positive during the pregnancy need to include it in their differential diagnosis. Consider, for instance, a reported case in which a child, born to a woman whose GBS screening test had come back positive earlier in the pregnancy during the pregnancy, began to exhibit symptoms consistent with a Group B Strep infection shortly after birth. However, the pediatrician did not match the symptoms in the child's postnatal record with the prenatal chart which indicated that mother had tested positive for the bacteria during the pregnancy. Because of this, the proper diagnosis was postponed and antibiotics were not administered immediately.

Due to the delay, the baby sustained a brain injury. The law firm that handled this case announced that the case settled for $3,875,000

Infants can acquire a GBS infection even tough antibiotics were given to the mother while in labor. Research conducted recently also revealed that a certain number of newborns who manifest the infection regardless of whether the mother tested negative. Doctors thus need to consider it as part of their differential diagnosis whenever a baby exhibits signs consistent with Group B Strep. As this case illustrates The failure to check the prenatal chart and to consider Group B Strep might amount to liability for medical malpractice.