He group B streptococcus (GBS) It is a bacterium that we carry one in four women, which passes from the mother to the baby during childbirth and is the first cause of infection with risk to the life of newborns.
Many women may not know they are infected because they have no symptoms. The germ of streptococcus It is lodged in the intestine and / or in the woman's vagina and can be infected to the baby at birth. Although some babies exposed to the bacteria do not suffer any infection, others can develop it during the first week of life, usually within the first 24 hours. Even in some cases it can appear up to three months of age.
It is a fairly common and benign disease in pregnant women, however, it can be lethal to the newborn. Therefore, as a prevention, the gynecologist will do a vaginal and / or rectal culture in the last weeks of pregnancy. If positive, it is treated with antibiotics before delivery or intravenously at the time of delivery. The probability of infection of the baby is quite low (between 1 and 4 out of 100). Likewise, if it is suspected that your child may have been infected, they will have the necessary tests to detect and treat it, since it can cause very serious diseases such as septicemia, meningitis, pneumonia and long-term hearing and vision damage, as well as problems development.
Currently, expert researchers are developing a vaccine that is still under study. "If we could give a vaccine to prevent women from having group B streptococcus in the vagina, then babies would not be infected," said Dr. Daron Ferris, one of the vaccine's propellants.
