Jennie --
I have reviewed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidelines for women testing postive for group B strep. Nothing is said about induction in the recommendations. However, here is what theCDC guidelines say about women who give birth too quickly to receive the recommended antibiotic dose:
In the event that intrapartum antibiotics are not given despite an indication (e.g., delivery occurred precipitously before antibiotics could be administered to a GBS-positive woman), sufficient data are not available on which to recommend a single management strategy for the newborn. Some centers provide intramuscular penicillin to asymptomatic infants within 1 hour of birth, based on results of observational studies showing declines in early-onset GBS disease coincident with a policy of universal administration of intramuscular penicillin to all newborns (121).
Whereas they say infants of mothers who received the recommended dose do not need any special treatment unless they show signs of illness.
Now that you have the link to the CDC guidelines, you can read through them and decide for yourself in collaboration with your midwife what you think the best course of action should be. You will want to consider not only the benefits of induction but the potential harms, whether having your baby have an injection of penicillin is acceptable to you, and what the risks would be in your individual case because risk of infection varies depending on how heavy the colonization, whether the baby is full-term, and how long the baby is exposed to possible infection during labor. Speaking of which, on general principles, I recommend avoiding any procedure that could carry the microbe up from the lower vagina, where it usually lives, onto the cervix or giving it access into the womb unless there is a compelling reason for doing it. This would include vaginal exams, stripping membranes, rupturing membranes, or internal electronic fetal monitoring (cardiotocography).
-- Henci
|