Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is said to be the most common cause of bacterial infection in newborn babies, usually
presenting within the first 24-48 hours after birth, resulting in disease at birth and up to 3 months of age.
Up to a third of all men and women carry GBS in their intestines without symptoms and roughly a quarter of women of childbearing
age carry GBS in the vagina at any one time. GBS is a normal body commensal (an organism that lives on another without harming
it). A positive swab result for GBS means a woman is colonised with GBS at the time the swab was taken - not that she or her
baby will become ill.
GBS colonisation is normal and does not require treatment with antibiotics (GBS is not a sexually transmitted disease
and treatment of a woman carrying GBS and of her partner does not prevent re-colonisation). The time when antibiotics
are effective against GBS infection in newborn babies is when they are given intravenously (through a vein) to a pregnant
woman when she goes into labour or her waters break.
