What Are the Treatments for Strep B?

Group B Streptococcus is a bacteria that’s present in many healthy people. Doctors are careful not to use the term “infected” because its presence isn’t necessarily a problem. Group B Strep, or GBS, is a routine test that’s administered for pregnant women between weeks 35 and 38. Presence of GBS can cause fetal blood infections (sepsis) or pneumonia or meningitis in less than .5 percent of untreated women with GBS.

1. Testing

   • Toward the end of pregnancy, the vaginal and anal area is swabbed with cotton and the sample is sent to a laboratory and allowed to grow under specific conditions. After the cells have grown, scientists examine the sample to detect the presence of Group B Streptococcus.

   Significance

   • At least 30 percent of women have GBS present in their samples, and if left untreated, less than half a percent of the babies born of GBS+ women will end up with sepsis, a blood infection. With treatment, however, none of the babies end up suffering GBS sepsis.

   Considerations

   • Preventing GBS-related infections in babies with intravenous antibiotics during labor is effective, however, there tends to be an increase in other types of blood infections, which means that the death rate of babies is unchanged. In fact, in babies whose mothers had been treated with antibiotics during labor, at least 88 percent of the infants were resistant to antibiotics whereas in the babies whose mothers were not treated during labor, only 18 percent were resistant.

   Symptoms

   • In expectant women, there are no symptoms of the presence of GBS. In newborns, the symptoms of infection are a fever in the first 24 hours, and lethargy, which may be accompanied by high-pitched screaming.

   Treatment

   • The most common treatment for GBS involves intravenous administration of antibiotics during labor and delivery. For the .5 percent of babies of untreated GBS+ women, who have become infected with GBS, injections of antibiotics are used to treat the infection, whether it represents itself as sepsis, pneumonia or meningitis.