Thanks for your advice. I'll mull it over a bit more. Have plenty of time. Good idea about testing as near as poss to due date. Although as I'm due just after Christmas  I guess results could get caught up in the post! Karen. xx

i have never been tested for it myself i had No.1,2 and 4 in hospital and no.3 i had at home to be honest even with testing my labours tend to progress that fast (faster being 1hr 25 mins) that it would be very doubtful i would arrive in hospital in time for antibiotics so if i were positive i would probably have to rely on them being given to baby after delivery.

i agree its a tricky one strep B because of how random it is. a lot of these tests out there can be taken from around 35 weeks and even when they show positive you can still be negative further along the line same as the other way around they could show negative at 35 weeks and you could still be positive around your due date its why the nhs dont routinely test as there is no point with this daily pos/neg readings.

i would say if you are concerned and you want to test yourself make sure you do it close to your due date so you can get a more accurate reading around the most important time you need it.

then do what you feel is right depending on the results.

mara x

Hiya,

Home deliveries are great - out of my five children I have had two. One quite normal birth and the other was very traumatic.

I gave birth to my son at home after over 24hrs with ruptured waters, i had no idea that I was GBS positive, he was born flat and quickly taken into NICU - where he responded well to anti-biotics and is now a strapping nearly seven years old. After that I vowed that I would have any further babies  in hospital and I did with no further complications.

Because you are not routinely tested in hospital you can now buy lits to do at home, but hese can give you false negatives - because GBS may show up one day and not the next.

My local hospital will not let you deliver at home if you are GBS positive, the choice is yours really only you know exactly how you feel about the whole thing.

Good luck with your birth take care Shell x