Prevention of perinatal group B streptococcal disease in Minnesota: results from a retrospective cohort study and new prevention guidelines

Abstract

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is an important cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality in the United States. In 1996, guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that prenatal care providers either screen all pregnant women for GBS carriage and offer intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP) to women who test positive, or offer IAP to women who have risk factors for early-onset GBS (EOGBS) disease during pregnancy. A recent multi-state retrospective cohort compared the efficacy of the 2 methods and found the screening-based method to be significantly more effective at reducing the incidence of EOGBS. One of the study sites was the 7-county Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. Analysis of Minnesota data also found screening to be more effective in reducing EOGBS than the risk-based approach. In August 2002, the CDC published new guidelines that recommend adoption of a universal screening approach to management of perinatal GBS infections.