This is a rant. You’ve been warned.
Antibiotics during labor is the standard protocol for GBS+ mothers. I was given them without my consent, without being informed, NOTHING was said to me until I began to have excrutiating pain in the arm with the IV. I was told I was being given fluids when in fact, they were antibiotics and I reacted violently to them.
GBS kills babies, and can make mothers very very sick as well. I’m asking questions though, because as I research this topic I am finding new literature that says antibiotics carry very real risks of their own. The greatest of these being that they render the babies who receive them in-utero virtually antibiotic resistant for the first few months of life to most Ecoli strains. Ecoli infections are rampant in hospitals, and babies born with compromised immune systems (having had their waters broken and hospital germs introduced to the before-then sterile uterine environment) at greatest risk.
Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves… our care providers… what else can be done? Because despite it being “standard protocol”, antibiotics do NOT catch all GBS infections. Cultures come back negative but the infant is diagnosed with GBS soon after birth. Antibitocs are given, just as protocol demands, yet babies contract GBS anyway and we lose them.
There is alot out there on this, albeit quietly… am I making a mistake by asking these questions? I was GBS+ for 3 pregnancies. Given the risks of antibitocs vs. the risk of a baby contracting GBS from me, should or WOULD I choose to have them administered?
I want to see the day when we CURE GBS in the MOTHER. So treating the baby is a non-issue. Someone tell me I’m not a lunatic for researching such a thing. Because from what I read (in peer-reviewed medical literature) antibiotics during labor are a shot in the dark. They reduce the risk but do not provide immunization for a baby from it. We should step back and be looking for a way to reduce the number of women who are GBS+… We need to understand better what it is, what it isn’t, and here’s a thought…
“WHAT CAUSES IT IN MOM’s IN THE FIRST PLACE???”
and
“HOW CAN WE CURE IT IN MOM’s SO THE BABY ISN’T EVEN AT RISK???”
To be angry at me for asking about treatment options when IV antibiotics can’t/won’t/shouldn’t be prescribed is sad. I’m no genius. I doubt I will answer these questions on my own. But I won’t stop asking them. And I won’t stop researching them.
“Standard protocol” is not good enough for me or my babies.
Dar a Luz Women's Care 
No, you are totally justified in asking further questions and exploring if there aren’t better ways of addressing GBS. I’ve had some recent discussions about GBS on my blog: alternative treatments during labor, how to get rid of GBS colonization in the mother prior to labor, etc. Part of the problem is that only certain questions get asked in the first place, so if there isn’t funding/interest in pursing alternative strategies (such as lowering GBS colonization in the mother prior to labor) then the research study will never get done.
Some people think it’s scary to go against doctor’s orders; likewise, some of us think it’s scary to listen and do everything someone tells you without really looking into all of the ‘whys’, risks, and options 😉
With my last pregnancy and birth, I took natural measures ahead of time to help obtain a negative GBS test, and I continued these remedies up until I gave birth to ensure that I continued to not be actively carrying at the time my baby decided to arrive. Had I tested positive, we would have tried stronger natural methods and retested. Had I *still* tested positive, I’m not sure which I would have done- IV abx or nothing at all. Thankfully, none of these were a problem. To be honest, I really wasn’t too concerned about testing at all, but since we planned a homebirth in a not-so-friendly area, we felt that if we did need to go in for a transfer, it would be nice to have one less thing to fight about. If we had to transfer, we would have been able to give proof that I’d been tested/negative, instead of them pushing things just b/c they’d be pressuming I was positive w/out a test, such as pushing abx for me and/or baby and extra monitoring; quite possibly even separation after birth.
That’s what was right for me, and I know that’s not right for everyone. I don’t think it’s fair when some people will attack others for going against the ‘norm.’ Just because something is the norm doesn’t mean it’s best or right.
I notice that it seems to be the people who’ve done their research and made truly educated decisions (whatever those decisions may be) who are more likely to say ‘to each their own,’ but it’s those who don’t do the research or ask the questions that are more likely to attack and be defensive. Personally, I’d rather be ridiculed for asking questions or for a decision that I truly do feel is in my/my child’s best interests than be accepted and left alone for just following along. . .
IMO, part of being a parent is being responsible enough to ask the tough questions and not just blindly following.
With my second child I was ‘supposed to be tested’… my midwives work at an innercity site… supplies were thin that month. I never did get it. Was I scared? no. Was I worried? no. okay, a little worried they’d get raked over the coals for not having all the paperwork done to the Provinces standards… I’d signed off the paperwork saying I didn’t want it a while back, but changed my mind in a moment of panic. 🙂
Was my baby born healthy? yup, looks like it. He is almost four now. I am constantly amazed at people who are horrified that I didn’t have an gbs status. Whatever! I will die if I get penicillin or any of its cousins. I know that it was a total nightmare for my midwives to get the acceptable equivalent for my ‘moderate risk’ homebirth… just in case. I didn’t have a line. They offered early on in labour, noted it and my response and off we went.
I was so ‘high’ after finally ‘giving birth’ *my words, my emotions* after my cesarean that I think that I watched babe so closely out of amazement more than concern over his well being.
I’m thrilled to see someone asking all the right questions instead of relying on the distribution of antibiotics -which do have a time and a place… like cesareans.
Excellent post! I have asked these same questions myself. Are antibiotics in those first hours of life outside the womb–such a sensitive time–the best course of action? Is there not a better answer that doesn’t carry the risk? And what is the real risk of GBS in births where there is not interference in the first place?
Good questions!
btw, I linked to your blog from Journey of an Apprentice Midwife.
After the Cesarean with my first child, I was given antibiotics intraveneously 800 (Not sure of type of measurement) but I sure remember the number! I immediately thought “oh, no.”
The following 18 months after giving birth, I had reocurring cases of infections, from strep throat, to a bladder infection, to a gastro-intestinal illness that had two doses of antibiotics.
Although I was not given antibiotics for GBS, but as protocol for a Cesarean, it bothered me immensely that the anesthesiologist did it AS HE WAS INFORMING ME. I would have refused had I been asked.
Well i am 37 weeks along and gtest very low for gbs and i am trying to figure out quickly what to do. i am against antibotics but listening to everyone and more than half the stuff on the web its scares the crap outta you to refuse the antibotics. it just makes no sense to take the measures they take!
i love alternative treatments because it is simple and does not have nasty side effects “”;