Made my midwife squirm tonight.

[finallypregnant]

We had our 2 hour session for mums and dads at our local NHS hospital to talk about births and pain relief etc.

There was an open questions bit at the end and I asked the question of testing for Strep B. Had read on here and wondered what our local policy was.

Well, she said no and looked straight at me. I got a bit red faced and she said, you'll be wanting more of an answer than that and she proceeded to tell me that it is so rare they don't test.

I was about to ask what happens when it is in the family as my cousin told me on Sunday she is a carrier but I didn't get that far. MW changed the subject rather quickly.

I have strep b i only found out because i had a bleed and the epu done a swab

i would of never known if i didnt have that bleed.

I dont no if it is in familys or not but my sister has it to.

You can buy a test and take it to midwife to do for you and send it off.

There have been a few threads on StrepB recently. I think something like 30% of all women are GBS +ve at any given time, so your MW was giving some mis-information (to be polite!). Infections can come and go, which is why if you're going to test you should do so at 36/37 weeks. The %age of women that carry GBS is high enough that a number of close relatives found to be GBS +ve is more likely to be coincidence than anything else.

If your baby contracts a GBS infection at birth it can be very serious. However, the vast majority of babies are born to GBS +ve women don't have a problem. If you are found to be GBS +ve, you'll be offered IV anti-biotics during labour: This may remove some risks but it creates others - it's not a risk free solution, and some of the new risks can also be serious.

Lots of that sounds negative. I do think it would be beneficial to know whether you're GBS +ve when going into labour so that its possible to make an informed choice - I just have the impression that a lot of NHS hospitals only go for "informed choice" as long as that fits in with "doing what fits our protocols".... sorry - cynical hat is on tonight

(for me, I'd like to know so that I could accept the ABs IF I had additional risk factors - but as long as I felt I'd be treated as "GBS+ve = IV ABs = more medical birth", I'd take the risk on not finding out)