Sarah's Baby's Story   — Sarah Wood, Victoria, Australia

My story results with both my newborn and myself getting strep B septicemia. At 38.5 weeks the doctors had decided to induce me via the drip due to gestational diabetes and being on a high dose of insulin despite being healthy otherwise. They ruptured my membranes at 7am and started the drip. I wasn't progressing so they decided at 7pm to stop the drip, let me rest and try again in the morning. Things turned for the worse around 2am. My contractions hadn't stopped but now I was fevering. They decided to act quick and take me down to theatre for an emergency c section. I was told that my baby had a temperature and would be taken immediately to intensive care. They started him on several antibiotics as a precaution until the blood cultures came back. Meanwhile I was continuing to experience high fevers. It turned out I also had strep b septicemia. My vaginal/rectal swap they took during labour was negative but it was positive in blood cultures. None of the doctors could tell me how I managed to pick the infection up. My baby luckily recovered quickly from the antibiotics. However, it took over a week until I started responding to antibiotics. I don't know if it would have made any difference if I was screened at the 37 week check up or not as it didn't even show up in the swap they took. My hospital doesn't screen for it anymore.