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The Test Every Pregnant Woman Needs
Excerpt
By Kathleen Doheny, HealthDay
For a pregnant woman, the test is
simple and painless, but it can prevent a lifetime of grief and
perhaps even save the life of her baby.
It's the test performed in late
pregnancy for a bacterium called group B streptococcus, or GBS,
which can threaten the life of a newborn if it is transmitted
from mother to child. To detect it, the obstetrician simply swabs
the vaginal and rectal area and sends the sample to the laboratory,
where a culture is grown to determine if GBS is present.
While many women who have been
pregnant before know about the test, those experiencing their
first pregnancy often do not, says Dr. William Growdon, chairman
of obstetrics and gynecology at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center
in California.
"Usually at the beginning
of the visit, I'll say, 'This is the time we need to be looking
for a bacterium that is dangerous to your baby at the time of
delivery,'" he says.
To focus attention on the problem,
July has been designated International Group B Strep Awareness
Month.
Awareness of the importance of
testing for GBS is growing, says Dr. Charles Prober, a professor
of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, and a
member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious
Diseases.
If left untreated in a woman about
to give birth, Group B strep can be transmitted to the newborn.
GBS is the most common cause of blood infection, or sepsis, in
newborns, as well as infection of the lining and fluid around
the brain, or meningitis, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC).
Under revised CDC guidelines released
in 2002, it's recommended that every pregnant woman be screened
for GBS at 35 to 37 weeks of gestation. The American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists also recommends that every pregnant
women be tested.
Before the test was widely recommended,
about 8,000 babies in the United States were afflicted annually
with group B strep and one in 20 would die, according to the CDC.
Those who survive often have long-term problems, including learning
disabilities and vision problems.
Since testing has become more common,
the incidence of group B strep in babies less than one week old
has declined by more than 70 percent, the CDC says.
If the test comes back positive,
preventing transmission is relatively simple -- the woman is given
antibiotics beginning four to six hours before delivery, Growdon
explains.
When you consider that between
10 percent and 30 percent of pregnant women are infected with
the bacterium, Growdon says, it's crucial to be alert to the potential
problem, since those affected often do not have symptoms.
Prevention techniques are good,
but not perfect, Prober points out. "There are two types
of GBS [in infants]," he says. "Early onset starts within
five to seven days." Late onset, which could be contracted
from the mother or from other people who carry the virus, shows
up after five to seven days.
The typical treatment of GBS infections
in newborns is also antibiotics, administered intravenously, according
to the CDC.
About half of the late-onset GBS
in newborns comes from their mother, the CDC estimates. The rest
of the infections come from carriers of the virus, according to
the March of Dimes.
Experts agree that getting the
test done in late pregnancy is the best way to reduce a baby's
risk.
More information
For more information on group B
strep, visit the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Group
B Strep Association.
Reference
Source 101
For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
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