Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of using intravenous antibiotics in preventing the transmission of group B streptococcus infection to at-risk new-born babies.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published a revised green-top guideline in 2012 on the prevention of early onset neonatal group B streptococcal (GBS) disease. The purpose of the guideline is to provide guidance for obstetricians, midwives and neonatologists on the prevention of early onset neonatal GBS disease. It recommends offering intrapartum penicillin prophylaxis to women with a risk factor that is associated with invasive GBS disease in their newborn baby. These are:

- previous baby with invasive GBS infection

- GBS bacteriuria in the current pregnancy

- vaginal swab positive for GBS in current pregnancy

- pyrexia (>38 °C) in labour

- chorioamnionitis

In addition the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published a clinical guideline which addresses early onset GBS and other neonatal infections, ‘Antibiotics for early-onset neonatal infection: Antibiotics for the prevention and treatment of early-onset neonatal infection’ (August 2012). The clinical guideline is available at:

http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg149