Groups B Strep Protocol
Liability Disclaimer: The following protocol has not been scientifically proven to reduce or eliminate GBS + cultures, only anecdotally. Being that I am not a medical doctor or alternative practitioner, I'm only distributing this information as a service, not as a recommendation. I cannot be held responsible for your medical care. For further care please seek out a knowledgeable health practitioner.
Also more information at http://www.birthlove.com/pages/gloria/strep_b.html
NEW 1/02
Essential Oil Protocol to get rid of GBS
It's imparative that the oils are of highest quality.
I suggest Young Living oils youngliving.com (Mountain Savory is available only through them)
Put the following in a Double O gelatin or vegetable capsule
5 drops Lemon Essential oil3 drops Oregeno Essential oil5 drops Mountain Savory Essential oilTake one capsule 3 times daily
Additionally do the following:
Soak an ORGANIC tampon in
15 drops Lemon Essential oil9 drops Oregeno Essential oil15 drops Mountain Savory Essential oil1 tsp carrier (V-6) oilLeave soaked tampon in overnight
Insist on being retested
Do this daily for the last six weeks of pregnancy
OR
Taken from the archives at http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/gbs.html#New
3 capsules of Congaplex 3 times a day
Congaplex is available at http://www.humandiamond.com/hdpub3/store/store0100.html 1-800-366-5992
Take 500mg Vitamin C every 4 waking hours
1 acidopholis (4 billion micro-organisms) capsule every 4 waking hours
Insert an ORGANIC tampon soaked in a combination of 10 drops of tea tree essential oil and Olive oil. Leave the tampon in for 4 hours each day for 6 days.
Daily for the last six weeks
Then insist on retesting to see if the GBS has gone away.
Anecdotal Evidence:
* On my (a midwife) ladies with heavy colonization I use EHB by NF Formulas given over a 10 day period (6 caps per day), and Tea tree oil vaginal suppositories 3 to 4 x daily for that time. This can be done on a small size tampon or a cotton ball, whichever is more comfortable for Mom. I have seen heavy colonization completely cleared with this treatment, but have no scientific studies to support it.
I re-tested at two weeks after positive culture (3 to 4 days after last EHB taken), two weeks after that (2 1/2 weeks after first positive culture), and on one occasion I tested again 2 1/2 weeks later (5 weeks after positive culture) because of a prolonged ROM with no labor.
*I would like to share with you a case I had last year. Mother's culture at 36 weeks yielded a result of 2+ colonization, which was the same at 38 weeks. I had her take 500mg Vitamin C every 4 waking hours, 1 EHB (NF Formulas) capsule every 4 waking hours, Propolis 4x daily, and she inserted a tampon soaked in 2% Tea Tree oil solution 2%Tea Tree essential oil, 98% Olive oil). She left the tampon in for 4 hours each day for 6 days. Culture at 39 weeks was negative for GBS. She had a long labor, a high leak for 72 hours, then a rapid active phase and 2nd stage, healthy baby, normal placenta, and normal recovery.
I have become a believer in Tea Tree oil for a variety of infections, though in this case I believe it acted synergistically with the other natural therapies the mother used. I have used it as a spray on throat infections, as well as for vaginal yeast, trichomonas, and gardnerella, all with great success. I do not see much about Tea Tree oil in midwifery literature, but it may well be worth a try for other GBS+ moms who are averse to standard antibiotic therapy.
*Congaplex by Standard Brands. The midwife I spoke to uses it in this way: For a positive GBS culture, 3 caps, 3 times a day for a week, then reculture. If negative, no more Congaplex. If positive, 1 cap a day until the end of pregnancy. She said she has just done a case history study and found that it works very well for GBS. If you are having a hospital birth, you might have a difficult time working with your OB in getting recultured, using natural medicines, etc. She says that this works very well for midwife-assisted births.
1..boost Vit. C in your diet e.g. eat 2 grapefruit per day. Other good sources of Vit C : red peppers, oranges, kiwi fruit.
2. Drink a cup of Echinacea tea or take 2 capsules of echinacea every day
3..Get extra sleep before midnight. Slow down your schedule
4. Take 3 tsps of Colloidal Silver per day. Take it between meals. Hold the liquid in your mouth a few minutes before swallowing. Coll Silver can be purchased in most health food stores. It is silver suspended in water. It is antibiotic in nature and safe in pregnancy.
5. Plan ahead for extra warmth after the birth for both you and baby. Hot water bottles, heating pads, hot packs, big towels dried in a hot dryer during the pushing phase--will all help you and baby keep extra toasty after birth and reduce stress. Have a friend or family member assigned to be in charge of the "Mother/baby warmth team". The colostrum from your breasts is the best antibiotic treatment your baby could ever get.
6. Other good prevention tips: Keep vaginal exams to a minimum--0 is best. Do not permit artificial rupture of the membranes. Do not allow children of other families to visit the new baby for the first 3 weeks. Keep your older kids healthy so they are not sneezing and coughing on new baby.
I hope this is helpful to you. I often think that we must have had a lot of women who were Strep B positive in the 800 or so births that I have attended. We do not test unless we have long rupture of membranes and/or a preemie. Once the baby is born, we keep all women warm and baby skin-to-skin with the cord intact (velcroed to Mom) and, of course, all our mothers breastfeed. I have never had a baby sick with Strep B in twenty years.
More thought on GBS:
Group B Strep is a normal bacteria that is present in 20-30% of women's vagina. It becomes important in childbirth for you if you develop signs of an infection, which can be pretty nasty (after you've delivered). The infection can be of the womb lining (endometritis) or wound if you have a section.
Much more importantly for your baby is the disease called Early Neonatal Group B Streptococcal Septicemia (ENGBSS). This is occurs after the baby passes through an infected birth canal and the infection spreads to his blood stream. 30% of affected neonates develop meningitis and half of these sustain permanent neurological injury. It carries a 20-30% mortality rate.
Neonatal carriage occurs in 35-50% of labours where a swab during labour was positive and in 25% where there was a positive maternal swab at some point in the antenatal period. Only 1-2% of neonates colonised develop ENGBSS.
In the UK, ENGBSS occurs in 0.3/1000 neonates. In the US it is 3/1000.
There are some well identified risk factors for an infant developing ENGBSS. In addition to a positive maternal swab, the following factors lead to a much increased chance of sepsis (about 50/1000 as compared to 0.3/1000), and would prompt treatment:
Prolonged rupture of membranes (>12h)
Preterm labour (<37w)
Rupture of membranes before 37 weeks
emperature during labour
GBS found in the urine (heavier carriage)
Previous infant with ENGBSS
Treatment of GBS colonised mothers with the above risk factors during labour will lead to a 62% reduction in neonatal sepsis rate and 94% reduction in neonatal mortality due to this disease.
Treatment of colonised mothers without these risk factors during labour does not significantly reduce the rate of ENGBSS.
There's no perfect answer. In most cases, a mom who has GBS will also have GBS antibodies that are passed to the baby through the placenta. [ref: Williams Obstetrics] Nature's not stupid. In rare cases of either very high colonization or unhealthy mom or baby, the baby could be overwhelmed and then require antibiotic treatment.
However, the treatment carries risks of its own - 10% of moms have a mild allergic reaction to the antibiotics - 1 in 10,000 experience anaphylactic shock, which is life-threatening to both the mom and baby.
In addition, 4% of strains of GBS are now antibiotic-resistant. Again, nature's not stupid.
If you carry a resistant strain of GBS, the antibiotics will kill off all the innocuous, normal bacteria that would keep the antibiotic-resistant GBS in check, so that the only thing left is the resistant strain, which tends to be more virulent than the regular strain. This is a horrible situation for a newborn with an immature immune system.
In addition, of course, receiving antibiotics in labor is one of the dominoes in the cascade of interventions and increases overall risk due to the compounded risks of the cascade.
There's no perfect answer. Alternative approaches to reducing colonization may be the most sensible solution.
[from ob-gyn-l]
Group B strep is not so virulent. It is normal vaginal flora in pregnancy (20%) of all women have it. It only causes a problem in 1 of 400 babies exposed to it. There are to my knowledge no studies associating it with miscarriage. Why is everybody so bent out of shape about this organism. The real problem is what is there about that 1 baby in 400 that is so abnormal that allows this benign bug to harm him/her.
Sources of GBS Infection
Any caregiver can introduce GBS also. I have watched docs and midwives when they do vaginals. They lube up and then do this little wipe of the vulva with their fingers (almost like foreplay) to lube up the woman. During that wipe they can easily pick up GBS and insert it with their fingers. And it is not unusual for anyone who has delivered in hospital to have GBS.
As everyone knows, docs do vaginals on the first visit of a pregnancy (for pelvimetry and STD checks). I believe that with that first vaginal they can introduce GBS to the cervix and all too often do.
If a caregiver is going to do a vaginal in early pregnancy (& even in late) then the vulva should be wiped first with a microbial swab.
Far better to avoid GBS then have to treat it.
Negative Effects of Antibiotic Therapy
About 4% of GBS isolates demonstrate penicillin tolerance (from Merck Manual).
Neonatal sepsis and death caused by resistant Escherichia coli: possible consequences of extended maternal ampicillin administration.
Terrone DA, Rinehart BK, Einstein MH, Britt LB, Martin JN Jr, Perry KG
Am J Obstet Gynecol 1999 Jun;180(6 Pt 1):1345-8
"A relationship exists between neonatal death caused by ampicillin-resistant Escherichia coli and prolonged antepartum exposure to ampicillin."
Antibiotic use in pregnancy and drug-resistant infant sepsis.
Mercer BM, Carr TL, Beazley DD, Crouse DT, Sibai BM
Am J Obstet Gynecol 1999 Oct;181(4):816-21
"Maternal antibiotic treatment is associated with neonatal sepsis by organisms resistant to ampicillin and to maternally administered antibiotics."
Potential consequences of widespread antepartal use of ampicillin.
Towers CV, Carr MH, Padilla G, Asrat T
Am J Obstet Gynecol 1998 Oct;179(4):879-83
"The increased administration of antenatal ampicillin to pregnant women may be responsible for the increased incidence of early-onset neonatal sepsis with non-group B streptococcal organisms that are resistant to ampicillin. At this time penicillin G, rather than ampicillin, is therefore recommended for prophylaxis against group B streptococci. In addition, future studies are needed to determine whether alternate approaches, such as immunotherapy or vaginal washing, could be of benefit."
Intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis increases the incidence of gram-negative neonatal sepsis.
Levine EM, Ghai V, Barton JJ, Strom CM
Infect Dis Obstet Gynecol 1999;7(4):210-3
"Published guidelines have encouraged physicians to increase the use of intrapartum
chemoprophylaxis to reduce vertical transmission of GBS. This study confirms the efficacy of this approach. Unfortunately, this reduction comes at the cost of increasing the incidence of ampicillin-resistant gram-negative neonatal sepsis with a resultant increased mortality. These data provide compelling evidence that the policy of providing ampicillin chemoprophylaxis in selected patients needs to be reconsidered."
Failure of intrapartum antibiotics to prevent culture-proved neonatal group B streptococcal sepsis.
Ascher DP, Becker JA, Yoder BA, Weisse M, Waecker NJ, Heroman WM, Davis C, Fajardo JE, Fischer GW
J Perinatol 1993 May-Jun;13(3):212-6
"Intrapartum antibiotics may fail to prevent GBS sepsis in a number of infants born to mothers colonized with GBS or to those with acute chorioamnionitis."
Intrapartum Administration of Ampicillin Prophylaxis in GBS Mothers May Raise Risk of Neonatal E. coli Infection
Ob.Gyn.News April 15, 1998
Severe E. coli Tied to Intrapartum Ampicillin
from Pediatric News via Medscape
Neonatal early-onset Escherichia coli disease. The effect of intrapartum ampicillin.
Joseph TA, Pyati SP, Jacobs N
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 1998 Jan;152(1):35-40
The increased administration of antenatal ampicillin to pregnant women may be responsible for the increased incidence of early-onset neonatal sepsis with non-group B streptococcal organisms that are resistant to ampicillin.
The March 1, 1999 Ob.Gyn.News reports a presentation at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine which found ampicillin resistance in 45% of septic neonates who had been exposed to antibiotics in the prepartum or intrapartum period. Their retrospective study included 8593 births at 6 hospitals between 7-97 and 2-98, and looked at the 96 neonates who were clinically ill with a positive blood or cerebrospinal fluid culture. 70% of these had been exposed to either prepartum or intrapartum antibiotic tx.
Sepsis was 19.3 times more common in preterm babies (57 vs 3.1/1000). Ampicillin resistance was found in 50.1% of preterm babies, vs 20.6% of term babies. Intrapartum exposure was more likely to result in resistance than prepartum exposure (56.7 vs 16.7%) Most common organisms for early onset sepsis were GBS and e coli; for late onset, staph, e coli and candida.
There were 11 early onset GBS cases (1.4/1000), which the presenter commented was about the same incidence as is usually reported. (So does that mean that even though 70% had antibiotics, the rate of GBS was no different than if nobody got them, or does it mean that the 1.4/100 is what is expected when antibiotics are given?) They did find less GBS in those who had intrapartum antibiotics vs those who had prepartum antibiotics (10% vs 32%). It still leaves me wondering if this experiment (lots of antibiotics to a wide range of moms in the name of prevention, vs tx) is really working out when you look at the big picture, or will this too fall by the wayside as more is known?
