Ethan's Story   — Andrew Bullemor, London, England, United Kingdom

Hi everyone. I am glad this site exists as people need to be made aware of GBS and how to prevent the worst. My wife and I were expecting our first child together last year. My wife has a child from a previous marriage and GBS wasn't present then. However, 17 weeks into our pregnancy we discovered she had GBS. This was made clear on her maternity notes. Things went perfectly throughout all of our pregnancy when we got to the day before the due date and my wife started to go into labour. We went straight to the hospital with contractions 6 minutes apart and she was checked over. This was when things started to go wrong. We were put on a faulty monitor. My wife said that she felt the baby was distressed, but was assured by the doctor that all was okay and that we should go home as there weren't enough beds and then come back when the contractions were 2 minutes apart. Stupidly putting our trust in a suppsosed medical professional we did just that. My wife had a bath and we tried to sleep which was difficult as we were excited that we were only a couple of hours away from seeing our baby boy. The next morning things just felt different. We had a meeting booked with our consultant-- the first time we had seen him throughout the pregnancy and he struggled to find a heatbeat and sent us to the hospital where they carried out a scan and confirmed the worst. It was an unbearable sense of anger, loss, and sheer astonishment that we were sent home and not listened to. My wife had to then deliver Baby Ethan and this was the hardest thing to deal with. Going back a bit, my wife has requested a c-section as she's had one before due to complications and a long labour, but this was denied by the hospital. Had we had the C-section all would have been okay, we feel. Anyway we continued to have shocking treatment from that hospital. My wife is pregnant now and we have gone somewhere else, but I just want to encourage all women and their husbands/partners to stand up and shout when you feel the doctors aren't doing their job properly and spread the word about Strep B!! Peace and love to all! Editor's note: Planned C-sections do not prevent transmission of GBS from mother to child, but the risk is considerably lower if performed before labor starts or membranes rupture.