Tell me about your healthy child who had antibiotics at birth

[FourPlasticRings]

I'm really upset because my poor baby boy has been given antibiotics after birth by IV for 48 hours as a precaution because I have group b strep. I didn't think that would happen and was not told about it in pregnancy- they gave me a fact sheet that said I'd need antibiotics in labour and that was it. Now I'm sitting here stressing that he's been given antibiotics unnecessarily and he's going to have eczema or asthma or allergies because all his natural bacteria from birth have been wiped out by the antibiotics totally unnecessarily. I'm literally crying my eyes out on this hospital bed and feel I've failed him by not questioning more say the time but it was immediately after birth and I was so out of it that I let them take him away. Now we've been stuck here for two days and I've been told we need to wait for blood culture results to come back (that I didn't even know they were doing!) and that they'll continue the IV in the meantime. Someone please talk to me because I'm really struggling right now. Is what they're doing normal practice? Why was I not told about it? Will it have long term detrimental implications for his health?

If it is for step b, your little boy is lucky to be getting antibiotics. I won’t scare you by going on about if any further but there are far to many parents out there who wish their child could have had the same.

DS had a week of antibiotics at birth. He’s now a happy, healthy 11 year old. No exema, no asthma, no allergies, has just started at a top Grammar school, is sporty... so what I mean is this hasn’t affected him in any way. Don’t worry, you’re feeling like this because of all the hormones. It’s perfectly normal to feel a bit all over the place at first, especially when something unexpected happens.

My eldest had IV antibiotics at birth. Hasn't had any impact on him. He had mild baby eczema (all of my dc have) which he outgrew by about 2.
He's had antibiotics twice in the 10 years since - once for an ear infection and once for impetigo.

Group B strep is no joke for newborns.

The antibiotics are absolutely the right decision. You've done what's best for him.

DC1 had 3 days of antibiotics at birth (actually can’t remember what for - she had a temperature about 12hrs after birth so assume they whacked her with something generic?), she’s now 12, no allergies, she does have a small patch of psoriasis but there’s a family history of that, no asthma, tall & strong, In all the top sets, happy & healthy.

Step B is seriously dangerous for a newborn. It is necessary

Thank you @LadyCatStark. I need stories like this. I think you're right- hormones and massive sleep deprivation. They keep coming to check on him every 2 hours day and night and then he wakes and cluster feeds for literal hours. I've had so little rest since he was born.

@IHateCoronavirus he's not got group b strep. Nor any symptoms. And according to the fact sheet I was given his odds of developing it after I had my antibiotics in labour were 1 in 4000. I just don't understand why he had to have the antibiotics.

The things you're worried about are genetic. Its never nice when your baby need anything tbh but its better to take the precaution. Infection in newborns is fast and serious so be happy about it. Mine got excema before antibiotics!

Thanks @StellaGib and @borageforager. That's very reassuring.

My boy had loads of anti bs at birth, suspected meningitus, but was in fact pneumonia. He’s 5, no I’ll health to mention so far. He had more anti biotics at 3 months due to bronchitis which I remember being really upset at but he has managed most childhood infections without more so far.

I do understand the worry. I’m always reluctant to give my kids anti biotics but they are there for a reason x

Yes that is the standard treatment. They are doing this to ensure you go home with a healthy baby. The other option is one you do not want.
Hormone s also don't help

My now 9yo was given IV antibiotics soon after birth (5 days?). It was precautionary and turned out to be unnecessary, but as pp says, the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. He’s a slightly odd child, but I attribute that to slightly odd parents and not antibiotics at birth.
I hope you find some peace soon.

DC2 and 3 were premature and waters broke early. I was also GBS positive with DC3. Both had to have 48 hours of antibiotics after birth. It's not fun watching their tiny systems being pumped with these powerful medications but I'd prefer that than they got really sick with a bacterial infection because someone overlooked giving them prophylactic antibiotics.

Links with asthma and eczema may be significant at a population level but at an individual level I think family history is a far bigger predictor. No adverse consequences in either of mine that had the antibiotics.

@FourPlasticRings so you had the antibiotics in labour and then they gave them to him though he had no symptoms?! That sounds very strange and you should question it.

I’m GBS positive and they’ve said they’ll only give my baby antibiotics if I don’t get the antibiotics in time and/or she has symptoms (due in a couple of weeks).

I was worried about this too and have done loads of research into it - will you be breastfeeding? If so all the evidence shows his microbiome will have recovered within a couple of months. There’s a great article on it by evidence based birth.

motherofsnortpigs my oddest child has never had antibiotics at all

My first had antibiotics for 5 days after birth. She's very healthy and happy. My second didn't and he has eczema. Try not to worry.

Not to belittle your concerns, but if you’re 3/4 days post partum then you’re going to find it hard to be rational about this - and that’s ok. Those hormones are no joke. It’s all going to be fine. Be gentle with yourself.

Happened to me to, OP, for the same reason.
DD will be a strapping 30 yo next year, no health issues. Hope your LO follows suit.

I'm a paediatrician. I've started about fifty billion (well that's an exaggeration, but lots) of babies on antibiotics. Sounds like you haven't had great communication, which is rubbish.

Basically, when a baby has an infection, it can move really fast and be really dangerous. Thankfully infections in babies are rare, but we have no way of knowing which baby will be affected. However, early antibiotics are really effective at stopping it in its tracks. So, we get to the point of who do we treat to make sure we prevent as many life threatening infections as possible. The answer is we treat ALOT of babies. The great majority never needed them in the first place, but for some babues, this will be absolutely life saving. So we treat alot, in an attempt to miss as few as possible. Nice guidelines say that if you have a couple of risk factors (gbs, mum having a temp, your waters breaking for a little while and a few more) or if the baby shows any symptoms (basically does anything strange) the safest thing is to give antibiotics. When you are inserting the cannula for the antibiotics you send off about 1ml of blood for culture. This means you put the blood in a petri dish and see if you grow anything. Unfortunately, things take time to grow so it takes 48-72 hours to determine that nothing will grow. At the same time you send some blood for infection markers (which come back in a couple of hours) . You send another sample off at 24-48 hours to recheck infection markers. If either of the infection makes or the blood culture are positive, your baby needed the antibiotics and they are continued if not they are stopped and you go home.

The antibiotics we have used are pretty old school and so have been used on countless babies and are generally very well tolerated. You are somewhat right that some studies have shown very minute increases in atopy in babies given antibiotics. However, this is a small effect and may even be explained by the fact that premature babies almost always get antibiotics. Overall, this is a really low risk intervention. My personal opinion is the cannula is the worst bit of it. A rip roaring neonatal sepsis is a million times worse and can have awful outcomes. So weighing it up antibiotics are a sensible choice for most. I really believe you have done the right thing. It won't wipe out all his flora, but if you breast feed for a little bit that will really help with that as well.

Also my 11 year old had antibiotics for two days at birth and is as healthy as an ox. My 9 year old didn't, and had asthma!

Hope you feel better. The post natal wards suck, especially at the moment, and learning you've got to stay another couple of days is soul destroying, but it will be over before you know it. Good luck.

My DS had ABs in NICU following a traumatic birth. He does have minor skin allergies, but so do I and my mum. I'm sure it's genetic rather than any thing else. He is fit and well and off to uni next week.

That's right @FolkSongSweet- that's what they told me too. They said as long as I had them in labour we'd be fine to go straight home unless there were concerns. But then when I was actually in established labour the midwife mentioned he might need antibiotics after birth and that she'd check with the 'baby doctor'. Then even further along (about 9cm dilated) I was told that this 'baby doctor' had decreed that he would, in fact, need 48 hours of antibiotics. And then he was whisked off shortly after birth and not returned for almost two hours (they said it would take 20 minutes-apparently they couldn't find a vein. DH wasn't allowed to go with him due to COVID). And here I am, 50 hours later, waiting for the results of a blood test we weren't told he'd be having.

Thanks for all your stories, everyone, they are helping tremendously.

My daughter had the exact same thing for 36 hours after birth for the exact same reason. Apparently I'm a Strep B carrier; I had IV antibiotics during labour but apparently they didn't have time to do enough sessions of it. So she had to have IV antibiotics for 3 days as well. We stayed in hospital for it.

She is the healthiest and happiest little poppet ever and she is 12 now. Always has been healthy. Never any asthma (even though asthma runs in our family), little bit of dry skin when she was a baby which was sorted out with moisturiser (Aveeno cream), but then eczema runs in our family as well and her skin was nothing like as bad as mine was. Her skin has been fine for over 10 years now. Never any allergies to anything at all. Eats everything. Runs cross-country. She really is the picture of health. Please stop worrying. Your baby will be fine.

One thing I would say is that it made my daughter very sleepy in those first few days. So she didn't breastfeed because she would just go to sleep as soon as she was put on the breast. She stayed awake better for bottle or cup feeding. So that's what we did, and ultimately she ended up formula fed - which was not what I'd planned. But again, I really don't think she's suffered any health disadvantages from this. So don't feel like it's your fault or anything if you planned to breastfeed and the baby doesn't seem keen. My daughter has always been a healthy bouncing little bundle and your baby will be too.

My ds was on antibiotics everyday for the first 4 years of his life down to a kidney condition. Some of the time those antibiotics were changed to a different one to treat a sepsis infection and those gave him horrid gastric side effects (there wasn't another option).

I worked really hard at having probiotics and prebiotics in his diet when he was weaned. He eats healthily and (considering his condition) is really healthy. No allergies, no food intolerance (though we keep salt and sugar low for his condition), no asthma or similar. His specialist has always been very pleased with his progress and believes the diet we focus on has made a positive difference. He does pick up bugs more easily than some, but that's 4 years of antibiotics prophylaxis. This short couple of days is so unlikely to have long term implications for your little one's health. As pp says, if you breastfeed that really helps (I couldn't breastfeed so my ds wasn't lucky enough to get that) and also feed him a fab diet when he's old enough to wean onwards and he'll be grand. Don't panic xxx

And as a counter to all of these, my ds(7) has never had antibiotics in in his life but is still head to toe in eczema, gets spring eruption (basically a sun allergy) and was under investigation for asthma, so even if yours does go on to develop any of these things it's not necessarily down to the antibiotics.

And as pp have said, strep b is very serious and you really don't want to see it in action. It's far worse than eczema lets put it that way.

@NemoRocksMyWorld that's really kind of you to take the time and trouble to explain everything.