I would have put this on another Strep B board but they're all so full I thought I should start my own.
I just wanted to share my experience of Strep B and ask, like many people seem to have done, why isn't more being done about it?
I'd only vaguely heard the words Strep B before I had my dd and I thought it was just something rare that I would have been told about by my mw if I needed to know. Then my waters broke and I went into hospital 2 hours after due to bad contractions, so it wasn't a long time in between or anything.
During the wait for the pushing stage, a mw asked if she could do a vaginal swab and I said ok. I was in too much pain to wonder what it was for, I just thought it was normal procedure. The labour and delivery went without a hitch and my baby was born on a Monday evening. The following Wednesday morning, no-one had mentioned anything being wrong and I was expecting to be discharged when the day shift started. Then I was told I wouldn't be because dd had bad jaundice so they were going to keep her in for observation. So I thought that was it and we'd go home a couple of days later.
Then on Thursday, a paediatrician (sp?) came round and said that I'd tested positive for Strep B. He took swabs from dd and then rushed off, like he expected me to know what it was all about. It took until Saturday morning for me to get a mw to realise that I needed some more information and that no-one had told me anything, by which time dd had had time to be on a light blanket, go through bad jaundice and get rid of it!
The mw finally got a paed to see me on Saturday afternoon when they told me what Strep B was and gave me a leaflet about it. Then they said dd's swab results had been positive, and they took blood, but as she seemed ok they'd let us go home on the Sunday and just have the mw keep an eye on her.
She'd been feeding badly since she was born (still is) so Saturday evening was no exception but at 11pm another paed came round and suddenly said that because she wasn't feeding well that probably meant she was taking a turn for the worse and so they were going to put her on antibiotics just in case and so we wouldn't be able to go home for a while.
Then it took ages to get any info and one paed said we'd be in for 2 days, one said 7 days and one said 10 days. In the end in was a 7 day course, I had 2 difficult weeks in hospital and got home 13 days after I went in.
The thing is, the hospital couldn't help the fact that she had jaundice and Strep B but they way we got treated left me feeling really unsupported;
- We were hardly ever told anything and it always took at least a day for us to get someone to tell us the results of any tests, even though they might have been ready for a couple of days before.
- Only one mw out of loads ever took the time to listen to my concerns, all the rest were just to busy and rushed off after just telling me that they'd ask someone else (they never did).
- After the information I found out, I realised the antibiotics should have been started well before they were, which would have helped dd, and saved me a LOT of stress and depression.
I met a couple of other mums in similar situations while I was there and it seems that hospitals just aren't prepared for dealing with parents of babies with Strep B. They may be very medically capable but that doesn't give you much comfort when no-one will listen to you or tell you anything. We've been home a week now and we're still trying to find out information that we need to know and should have been told long before now.
Sorry if this seems like a long rant but I just can't believe the lack of information given about this very common and very deadly infection. More information should be given by mw's before labour, and more support should be given to parents who suddenly find themselves confronted with Strep B.