GBS (group B strep) is a bacteria that can live in the intestines, vagina and rectum. I'm not sure I understand this statistic, but apparently 15-40% (?) of women carry GBS. Nancy says that really about 40% of women carry it, but it is not always detectable throughout their life-span. You could also be more heavily colonized at different times in your life. Either way, it is not a good idea to go untreated during labor, especially for vaginal deliveries because you can pass GBS onto your baby and the side effects can be severe. Whereas carriers of GBS do not have any symptoms, babies can have breathing, intestinal, and kidney problems, as well as develop meningitis. These are not good things!
So how is GBS treated? In the hospital, women have IV antibiotics during labor that get into the baby's system to protect them from getting it if they're exposed. The risk of transferring GBS to your baby is very rare if you receive these IV antibiotics during labor with enough time to get into your system before the baby is actually born. Women with short labors in the hospital might not get enough dosage of antibiotics, but if their babies are born quickly, there is much less exposure to GBS.
At home you treat it a little differently. Dave and I do have the option to go to the hospital as a precaution, but we have decided instead to go a very common midwifery route and take oral antibiotics during labor. Because we have an idea of when the baby might be born, I am going to take a 5 day round of antibiotics about 10 days prior to my due date and it will protect the baby for 2 weeks after my last dose. Nancy does not expect me to go late at all, so this plan should work well. If I go into labor before I have taken the original antibiotics (say before Feb 28th), I will switch to another antibiotic during labor that will get into my system faster and protect the baby against GBS as long as I can take it about 4 hours prior to delivery. If I go into labor and have the baby without time to get antibiotics, I would be in the same position as a woman who showed up at the hospital and delivered her baby too quickly to get the antibiotics. Me being at home does not change the time frame in which to receive antibiotics whatsoever.
Some doctors say that oral antibiotics don't work as well as IV antibiotics, but Nancy has seen the exact same results with both - healthy babies who don't get GBS whether their moms take it through IV or orally. After 30 years and ~1000 babies, I trust that Nancy knows what she's talking about. I don't feed into the scare tactics about my baby dying - it's just ridiculous. Only 1 in 200 babies get GBS if it goes completely untreated, too. I'd say my chances of anything happening are so extremely slim with the antibiotics and I feel confident about our decision :)
Now that we have reached the 37 week mark (YAY!) we can safely deliver the baby at home. No hospitals, IVs, people yelling at me to push, nurses telling me I need to stay on the monitor, etc. etc. Baby E is full term and any growth she does from here on out is general growth and will not affect her chances of survival outside the womb. It would be nice to deliver sooner rather than later - less baby to push out - but I am ready to let go of the worries and frustrations about when she's coming and how that will fit into everyone else's plans. She is going to come when she's ready and all I can do is try to stay nice and relaxed, take my fish oil and probiotics, and get the freaking room ready!!!! I desperately need to finish prepping our bedroom for this baby but as the days pass, I am SO exhausted. My list right now consists of:
~ buying the final birth supplies
~ taking them to my mom's house to organize and label it all
~ washing the newborn diapers (boiling and washing a few times to quilt and increase absorbency)
~ hanging up the rods in the extra closet for her clothes, then hanging clothes
~ organizing the rest of her stuff in the closet to be easily accessible
~ moving the bedroom furniture to accommodate the co-sleeper (and possibly move the bookshelf?)
~ acquiring nursing bras and packing enough clothes and such for post-partum at the rents' house
~ packing the baby bag for post-partum at the rents'
~ getting new tubing and shells for the borrowed breastpump
~ making a mini birth plan/guide for the people who will be attending the birth
~ making a playlist of music and birth affirmations for labor
~ buying film and extra tapes for the camcorder (yes, we're filming the birth)
~ making copies of the emergency back-up plan for my parents
~ remembering to take my probiotics and fish oil every single day
That's all I can think of right now... there's a lot more things I need to do unrelated to baby, but they need to get done and I am procrastinating.
I will try to post more often now that we're home and there aren't any conventions for a while. We are having Baby Shower 2.0 this weekend after the storm hit 2 weeks ago and made it pretty much impossible for our friends to get down to Richmond. Let's hope it all goes well and that everyone has a good time!
~Christine
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