Today the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists say "Mothers-to-be should be aware of unintentional chemical exposures" - risks which, according to the report's authors are unlikely to be "truly harmful for most babies." Yet they fail to recommend either informign all pregnant women about group B Strep (GBS) or offering them testing for carriage late in pregnancy, despite GBS being recognised as the leading cause of severe infection in newborn babies in the UK. Huh?
This comes hard on the heels of the recommendation to test pregnant women to see if they're smoking - something a pregnant woman will know and be able to tell her health team. Carrying group B Strep is however silent - the only way to find out whether you are is to test, but the RCOG doesn't recommend testing - though they recommend treating the pregnant women in labour if it's found.
I read that in the Daily Mail, pregnant women should not do this or that.....I thought it was completely over the top and left expectant mothers clueless about what they can do or what they can use in pregnancy. Talk about scare mongering!! if I was a first time mother I would be freaking out after reading that, but experience and common sense is prevailing.
And a test to see if a pregnant woman is smoking???!!! Really! If they refuse to bring in a screening test on the basis of cost for something which can be detestation to babies, but can bring in a test to see if a woman is deliberately doing something harmful?? There is no sense in these decisions....I'm shocked and disgusted........
When ever I am pregnant and go to clinic no midwife is not forcing me to do any form of test to prove I am not smoking, I will not do it if I am aware of it, when I was pregnant and went in for my antenatal care I did urine and blood test and I had infection in my urine and my blood count was pretty low and it was when I had miscarry that's when I was told I need iron and I insist to see my medical records and found out I had strep b group, no one had told me about this silent killer. Now how do you want to tell me to do smoking test, if I want to smoke no one can stop me, so it's not relevant, what's relevant is informing pregnant women of the potential threat of silent infection lurking around, they can test for it early, I had my water brake at 18 weeks and I was swab, that's how they found out but yet didn't disclose it to me. I am now happily pregnant and also happy I will be getting private antenatal care instead of NHS and their secret society, why hiding important information from pregnant women ? Though I never drink or smoke in my whole life and I am too old for that now, so i can't see as to why they wants to introduce these measures that people are clearly in control of. If one choose to smoke while pregnant, then , that's a choice they make but strep b group is not our fault, when does common sense is going to prevail in the NHS ?
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Can you explain (briefly) what you'd say if antenatal GBS screening were introduced in the UK?
Losing a child through Group B Strep Infection