Health
| TOP STORIES |  | | | | | | FEATURES | | | | | | MAYOR NEWS | | | | TRAVEL | | | | COMPETITIONS | | |
|
|
|
Calls to test mums after baby catches serious illness
 |
| David-James Moore while in hospital |
Parents of a newborn baby who contracted a potentially deadly illness during childbirth, despite asking the hospital to test for it, have called for all pregnant women to be screened for the infection.
David-James Moore contracted Group B Streptococcus (GBS), an infection that can cause breathing problems, blood infections and meningitis, at St Helier Hospital, Sutton, when he was born on April 14.
Three days later he was rushed from the family's home in Crowlands Walk, Morden, to the Evalina Children's Hospital in Westminster, where his parents were informed by doctors that they had arrived just in time.
David-James's dad Paul Moore said: "We have been told that another two or three hours and we would have been organising a funeral."
Mums are not routinely tested for GBS, which is often carried by adults without causing illness but can be passed to children during birth, as medical experts deem it "too expensive" and not always reliable.
But David-James' mum Donna Moore claimed she specifically asked a midwife for the test for GBS but was told that, as she had given birth to healthy children before, it would not be necessary.
The family is now urging the NHS to test all mothers for the bacteria, as babies normally catch the illness during birth.
Mr Moore recalled how he first noticed that David-James was unwell two days after he was born, when he refused to feed and began making grunting noises. The baby was taken to hospital the following morning.
After an agonising week of intensive care at Evalina, David-James was eventually allowed home on Sunday - although he will need to return to St Helier Hospital for frequent check ups.
A spokesman for St Helier said: "In line with national guidance issued by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Trust does not routinely test mothers for Group B Streptococcal infection unless there is a family history or clinical reasons for doing so."
However, Group B Strep Support, a charity campaigning to fight the illness which claims the lives of about 70 babies a year, claimed: "Testing women late in pregnancy - and offering antibiotics through a vein at intervals once labour has started to those whose babies are at higher risk - would prevent 80 per cent or more of all GBS infections in newborn babies."
It is also thought the cost of treating infants with the illness far outweighs the cost of testing women in pregnancy.
9:41am Wednesday 23rd April 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
