hey there guys Alice here we're going to spin the wheel of birth and see what topic we're gonna talk
about today but I wanted to let you know that we have over 50 other topics and you can find
them very easily because they've been organized into a free course at birthAtoZ.com check that
out and see what you think let me know okay guys let's spin okay today we are talking about GBS so
GBS stands for group B streptococcus so GBS is a bacteria that can live in your gut can live
in your intestines can live in your vagina and it's something that actually one in four women
carry the GBS bacteria and it's also something that can kind of come and go in our bodies and
the crazy thing is that we have no symptoms of GBS so as you are getting late in pregnancy your
provider will likely test to see if you have GPS in your body now this test is usually done at an
appointment during your 36 or 37 week of pregnancy and what it is is a swab that is done usually in
your vagina and around your anus so it is not something that you have to have a vaginal exam
in order to be done it is just a swab on the exterior of your body or maybe slightly within
or slightly inside of your vagina and with that test they can tell whether or not you are what's
called GBS positive so usually before your next appointment or at your next appointment you will
find the results from the GBS test and you'll be told whether your GBS negative or GBS positive so
if you are GBS negative it means the GBS is not in your body at time at the time of the
test and so that you will not be treated for this bacteria when you are in labor if however
you are GBS positive then the protocol that most US care providers do is that they give
antibiotics during labor so that is actually antibiotics that is run through an IV and the
antibiotics can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to run all the way through the for
the whole amount of the bag of antibiotics to get into your system it depends on the speed at which
they're dripping it and that antibiotics will be usually readmit a stirred about every four
hours in labor so if you are there for 12 hours you might get three doses of antibiotics so I'm
gonna check the CDC super quick to give you guys a few numbers I'll be right back okay back from the
CDC website a couple pieces of information I think is interesting first of all GBS is pretty common
one in every four people are carriers for the GBS bacteria so one in every four people giving birth
will be tested and find out their GBS positive now another set of numbers which I find really
interesting too is that if you are GBS positive and you're treated with antibiotics at least four
hours prior to delivery that your baby has a one in 4,000 chance of developing GBS disease now GBS
disease is what the antibiotics are supposed to be preventing so so antibiotics if given it's one in
four thousand now if antibiotics were not given in labor prior to delivery then the baby's risk
of infection is one in 200 so it does increase significantly if antibiotics are not given prior
to birth as a doula and in childbirth educator I get the question a lot how do I get GBS out of my
system and unfortunately the answer that I'm gonna give is you can't now there's wives tales there's
different people that have tried different things of eating more probiotics there's some garlic
situations that have been described but there's really no surefire way of eliminating GBS from
your body so that is the info about GBS and I hope you found this information helpful that's
really the goal here is to make these quick little childbirth and nuggets so that you can
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