Dear Friends

I am writing with great news about the major clinical trial for group B Strep that I wrote to you about earlier this year.  On Friday, the Health Minister Nadine Dorries announced that the trial has been given ethical approval and will therefore start recruiting participants in the Spring. The trial will involve 80 hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland and at least 320,000 expectant mums.

As you know, group B Strep is the most common cause of life-threatening infection in newborn babies, causing a range of serious infections including pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis. The results of this ground-breaking trial will be used to inform the future of pregnancy care across the United Kingdom and could help save babies’ lives every year.

The trial will look at the effectiveness of two different tests compared with standard care – a lab-based test, the Enriched Culture Medium (ECM) test at 35 to 37 weeks of pregnancy, and a ‘bedside test’ at the start of labour. The ECM test is currently recommended for use on high-risk groups in late pregnancy by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ clinical guidelines.

Group B Strep infections in newborn babies can usually be prevented by giving antibiotics through a vein to women during labour, which reduces the risk by up to 90%.

The UK currently does not routinely test pregnant women for group B Strep, and instead identifies pregnant women with “risk factors” for their newborn developing the infection. This approach is not working - there has been a 31 per cent rise in the prevalence of GBS infections in babies under three months old since 2000 in the UK and Ireland and about 65% of the mothers (like me when I was in labour with Edward) did not show these “risk factors”.

In contrast, after routine testing was introduced in the United States, the rate of early-onset Group B Strep infection dropped by over 80 per cent and is now less than half that of the UK. If the same were to happen here, around 350 babies every year would be protected from Group B Strep infections, saving 15 babies’ lives and preventing another 15 from developing life-changing disability.  That would be thirty families saved devastating heartbreak and hundreds more the awful worry and trauma around the birth of their precious newborns – like my family, and so many others.

Please keep signing and sharing the petition to make sure we keep the awareness spreading whilst we wait for the trial to show its results.

Thank you and best wishes

Fiona