Group Beta Strep (GBS) and Your Options

Mar 24

Nov 29

Today I wanted to talk about Group Beta Strep ( GBS) because if you're pregnant, more than likely you are going to be testing for this, and you're going to be having to make a decision if your test comes back positive on what you want to do about treatment for this bacteria.

WHAT IS GBS?

Group Beta Strep is a very common bacteria that lives in your gut, and occasionally it can travel down to your vaginal canal.

In your normal day life it is typically no big deal.

HOWEVER….

When you are giving birth the baby comes through the vagina, so it can colonize the baby. This means that your baby can acquire this bacteria on their body.

It can get on their skin and in their mouth.

In about 50% of births where mom is at the time positive for GBS, about 50% of the babies can become colonized.

Out of those 50% of the babies, only one or 2% of those babies will get sick.

This is called early onset disease when they get sick from the bacteria within the first 72 hours after birth. It can cause meningitis, Sepsis , pneumonia and death.

So not great things right?

However, the likelihood of it happening is pretty dang low. I will also link some really great articles here that will give you a ton of information and resources for the statistics and, and the studies and things like that so that you can dive deeper if you would like to geek out about.

However, today I'm going to be covering how to make a decision that feels aligned for you , if you are indeed GBS positive.

I'm going to be going through a process that can help you make a decision on what works best for you.

WHEN DO YOU TEST FOR GBS?

Between 36 and 37 weeks, your provider will either swab your vagina and your anus or you can do it yourself ( which I prefer)

When I've worked with providers in the. Obs in general, they will do it for you. They don't give you the option of doing it yourself, which I think is really silly.

Now that I work with midwives and witnessing how they do prenatals, they give you the swab and instruct you how to do it. Which I love so much. It gives you the power back. It's less invasive and it's your freaking body and you know where things go, right?

So it's really, really simple. It's this long Q-tip basically, and you put it up your vagina like you're putting in a tampon and you swab it around and then you can take. And some midwives instruct you to also swab like your anus and some don't. So it depends on the provider that you are talking with and that are instructing you on what is best for you.

So, That's the test. So then you put it back in the tube and you, they send it to the lab. The lab does their culture and they tell the midwife or ob, is it positive or it's negative.

So say your test comes back positive. That's okay. Don't freak out. Just take it for what it is. Okay.

MY TEST IS POSITIVE , NOW WHAT?

This is a process I love using with my clients and I’m going to take you through it now.

I'm gonna be taking you through is from Susun Weeds, Six Steps of Healing. This is a way to go within yourself in a more empowering way to make decisions.

Anybody that's trying to make a decision right on their health and who they're taking care of to go through these six steps to really make a, an informed an intentional decision versus just going straight to, “Okay, do you wanna do antibiotics?”

There's so much more to it than just deciding, do I wanna put antibiotics in my body or do I not?

That's why I want to bring this to your awareness so that you can actually take a pause and intentionally decide what's going to be best for you, and not just taking your care practictioner’s word for it and going with what feels good to you, because ultimately, that's what matters the most.

You are the one that knows your body best. You know your baby best and you know your intentions, you know what your intuition is saying, you trust yourself the best, right?

Okay. So I want to build that trust within you.

Okay, here we go.

So the first step is

STEP ZERO and this is called do nothing in this step. We don't do anything. We don't make a decision. We don't Google, we don't research, we don't do anything. We don't ask our provider what to do. We don't ask our friend or sister, doula, anybody.

We go within.

Sleep on it, meditate on it. Disconnect from a social media.

It's so hard for us in this day and age to sit for a minute with a decision. We just wanna jump to the end result on what we should do. So I'm encouraging you take a pause. You can use this with any decision you're making, but today we are just starting with GBS.

Then moving on

STEP ONE is collecting information. So that could look like listening to podcasts , reading blogs, reading articles from trusted sources. These aren't just from like fearful moms or fearful providers that are terrified of whatever, you know? you are also Reading books, looking at the evidence, gathering information.

This step is not going to your provider and asking them to do because more than likely they not going to give you unbiased information. So when we are looking at the wise woman model of care, we are looking through the six steps of healing in order to make a decision because , you are the wise woman.

STEP THREE is nourish and tonify. So this looks like herbal infusions and nourishing your body.

How are you nourishing your body? What kinds of foods are you eating if you know your GBS positive? Eating fermented foods is really good. Eating yogurts and sauerkraut. Anything like that that's going to make your gut really, really healthy, that's going to make your good bacteria really strong so it can help weed out the bad bacteria.

So how are you nourishing your body? How are you moving your body? Are you staying in joy? Are you disconnecting from your body? Are you angry with it? Can you tap into it a little bit more and learn how to trust it? What are you doing to nourish yourself?

What are you doing to take care of your body? Going to a chiropractor, getting massages. I think laughter can also fall into this. How are you finding joy in your day?

STEP FOUR is stimulate and sedate. So Susan weed's definition she put like hot or cold water, herbal tinctures and acupuncture.

So you can look at things like that. How can you stimulate your bodies natural ability to heal and protect? How can you work with the meridian points with acupressure and acupuncture? How can you help your body in that way?

STEP FIVE is using supplements. So this could be like taking probiotics, taking things that are going to make your gut really healthy.

There are a couple supplements I really, really love that I definitely recommend taking before you get pregnant. If you're not pregnant yet and you're wanting to be especially if you've had a history of gbs positive results, I definitely encourage you to take a probiotic for vaginal health and gut health in general.

I LOVE Needed’s Probotic here. They have amazing supplements and you can get a discount with this link.

Mega Food is another great one and the one my midwife recommended to me is Pro- B

My midwife suggests every one of her clients to take it as early in their pregnancy if possible ( or prior to conceiving ) and if they take it as directed that 99% have a negative result. So I thought that was pretty fascinating. And it was accurate for me.

So maybe it would be accurate for you. I don't know. I think just taking care of your body anyway is just super awesome. So that's the step five is using supplements., There's another Theory out there that if you have a clove of garlic and you insert it vaginally, that that would also kill the group B strep by bacteria.

So I mean, that's an option as well. However, if you're going to be doing that, be careful.

You could tie a string around it or you can not, but do not nick it or cut it up. You need to leave it whole because that would be really uncomfortable. So if you are gonna choose to do the clove of garlic, just peel the skin off of it, insert it before bed and remove it when you wake up in the morning. I would do more research on that if that's something that you're curious.

An easy thing to do is also eating yogurt or sauerkraut. They are great probiotics for your body.

STEP SIX is called break and enter. And this could be, psychoactive drugs, invasive tests.

So this last step would be taking the antibiotics, in my opinion. So the antibiotics they prescribe are usually penicillin or ampicillin. So keep in mind if you're allergic to those, that would be something to talk about with your provider before hand.

Trista, what's the big deal? Why are people so worried about taking antibiotics?

This is because antibiotics, along with the bad bacteria, also kill the good bacteria in yours and your baby’s gut.

So looking at that, in the studies, what they have seen is that babies that have been treated with antibiotics in utero, their microbiome and gut are compromised. And so what actually helps with that is breastfeeding. So if you do take antibiotics, breastfeeding would be a good idea. You can also give your baby a probiotic.

And also make sure you're checking in with your pediatrician, your midwife or OB. This is not medical vice. This is just me sharing information with you so that you can make the decision that's best for you and your baby.

I'm encouraging you to do your own research as well, not just taking my word for it, but doing your research.

Studies show that baby’s are compromised for about three months. And If you are able to breastfeed then I encourage that for at least six months to really help them have a really good chance of building their microbiome and their gut health.

Another favorite and perhaps easier way of deciding on a plan of actions is using this acronym called

B.R.A.I.N.

It stands for benefits, risks, alternatives, intuition, and nothing. However, I like to start with the N ( nothing).

The first step you would do is nothing.

Hey Doc , what if I did nothing? You know what would happen? And so then they would hopefully give you the , evidence-based statistics, right?

The other thing that I forgot to mention is if you're having a cesarean, so you wont need antibiotics because your baby's not going through your vagina. .

The next thing you can say, Well, what are the benefits of me having antibiotics? What are the benefits of me not having antibiotics? What does that look. So the benefits of handing antibiotics is that my baby has an 80% chance of not getting sick if they do get colonized.

Like we talked about before. 50% of babies that, get colonized, out of that 50%, one to 2% of babies actually can get. Out of those babies that get colonized, it works for 80% of the babies.

What's the benefits of me not doing antibiotics? Well, my microbiome and my baby and gut health will not affected.

So then you look at the risks. What are the risks of getting antibiotics.

Oh, well the gut health is compromised or you can have reactions to the antibiotics.

What's the risk of not having antibiotics? So the risk would be like, Oh, well if my baby does get colonized, my baby could get sick. And there's potential for death, , sepsis, meningitis. In babies that do have early onset disease they typically show signs within the first hour after birth and the first sign is usually a fever.

So if you were someone that's choosing to not get antibiotics, what we would do as providers is we would check baby temperature. We would just keep an eye on baby for the next couple hours and make sure baby's doing okay.

So that's risks. The next thing would be alternative. . What can I do about this? Well, you could take probiotics, right? You can start pro probiotics now in pregnancy, , in helping to build your gut. So if you have not had tested for this yet, or if you are barely pregnant or not pregnant, I encourage you to go take a probiotic, and that's specific for vaginal health as well as gut health.

Then you have your intuition.

What does my intuition tell me? What feels good to me? And I feel like I've talked a lot about intuition lately on my podcast and on Instagram, my blog. So I encourage you to go back and listen to the Intuition podcast. You can read the Intuition blog and go read some of my stuff on Instagram that will help you get a good idea of how to tap into, into your intuition.

And then again, nothing.

Hopefully that makes sense to you. I hope that that helped you understand a little bit about GBS and what some people do and how you can help yourself have a very empowered decision. It doesn't matter what decision you make, it matters how you feel about that decision and how you feel about making that decision if you feel pressured into it.

Do you feel powerful? Do you feel like, yes, this is the right decision? Yes, I want antibiotics. It feels good. It feels like that's, that needs to happen. Are you making it from a fearful place? Are you making it from a peaceful place? If you don't want antibiotics, you're like, Yes. I feel very strongly that I do not want these antibiotics in my body, my baby's body.

You feel strong about that. That's your intuition saying, Okay, we're confident in this. Right. Your intuition is a confident, peaceful voice. It is not fearful. It is not angry is it's not wishy-washy. That's your ego or your fear speaking. So tapping and tuning into that, are you making your decision based on fear or you're making it based on confidence?

Maybe you have to sit with it for a few days, maybe. It's not an easy decision. It's not something that you take lightly. It's not something that I would have taken lightly. It's something that I would have to have sit with for a few days and really tapping my body and asking my baby

“What do you need? What do you feel like is going to be a best thing? “They know what they need and a lot of the time we don't remember that. There are also these beings that have a soul and if you tune in, you just might be able to know what they need.

You got this! I look forward to your birthing journey!!

I really appreciate you being here and good luck on your pregnancy. I'm so, so excited for you.

xo, Trista Birdzell