Woman whose baby developed common life-threatening condition calls for NHS testing

TAfter his child was diagnosed with a common, life-threatening bacterial infection, Oni Alonzo Glazier woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about hospital alarms going off.

Doctors realised something was wrong when the baby began to growl, and hospital staff later noticed that the baby’s heart rate was fast.

Her newborn baby remained in intensive care for a week as doctors tried to treat him. Group B Streptococcus The baby became ill again and ended up staying in hospital for a further 12 days.

The fear that her baby would die had a long-term impact on her mental health, and Alonzo Glazier’s therapist said the ordeal left her with borderline personality disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

She was released from the hospital after giving birth to her son, but he remained in the hospital for several days while doctors rushed to determine the cause.

“Leaving the hospital without him was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” Alonzo Glazier said. Independent“I cried the whole time I left the hospital. I can still remember leaving.”

The 36-year-old woman, from the West Midlands, has warned that many parents are losing children to the disease and is calling for all pregnant women to be offered free testing for the life-threatening disease as part of NHS care.

She said she had never heard of the disease before, was never advised to get tested during her pregnancy, and was unaware that it was possible to get tested for the disease while pregnant with a child.

Group B Streptococcus is a bacteria that is the leading cause of life-threatening infections in newborns, but most pregnant women can only get tested at private medical facilities.

It is common to contract this disease during pregnancy and it rarely causes problems, but in rare cases it can be transmitted to the baby and make them unwell. The disease is not commonly tested for, but it can be found during tests that involve vaginal swabs or urine tests for a variety of reasons.

On average two babies per day in the UK become ill with the disease and one baby dies every week from group B strep infection – and most of these cases could be prevented if the disease was diagnosed early and treated promptly.

Symptoms in babies may include limpness, changes in responses, grunting while breathing, faster or slower breathing, changes in temperature, changes in skin color, and vomiting.

Alonzo Glazier’s call comes after a new survey found that almost nine in 10 new and expectant mothers in the UK think group B strep tests should be routinely available through the NHS.

A survey by the charity Group B Strep Support found that eight in 10 mothers would want to be tested by the NHS, but of those, seven in 10 said they were unaware or had not been informed about the availability of private testing.

Of 1,000 new and expectant mothers surveyed across the UK, around 60% could not clearly spot the signs of group B streptococcus infection in their children, and around three-quarters were unaware that the infection can cause meningitis or sepsis.

“Leon was born at 1 p.m.,” Alonzo Glazier said. “I had gestational diabetes, so I was on 24-hour monitoring. By 11 p.m., he was making weird growling noises. That’s when I first realized something was wrong. He was rushed to the newborn room.”

It was five days later that she and her husband learned he had group B strep. Doctors initially thought he had fluid in his lungs, then diagnosed an unknown infection and treated it as sepsis.

“When they said I had sepsis, I panicked,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘What is group B strep?’ I had never heard of group B strep, even though this was my third child.”

Alonzo Glazier, who works at the middle school, said his son spent seven days in the neonatal intensive care unit.

“I didn’t sleep very well,” she added. “I kept checking my phone in case my newborn called. I felt like I had lost a limb. I was worried about whether my baby would make it out of the hospital.”

She explained that six days after she was initially discharged, Leong was re-admitted to hospital with group B strep.

“It felt like history was repeating itself,” she added. “It didn’t seem real. I was in the hospital with him for 12 days.”

Luckily, Leon made a full recovery: He’s now 20 months old and is “a happy, active little boy.”

“There needs to be more awareness about group B strep,” Alonzo Glazier added. “It’s unfortunate that there isn’t more awareness, and women should know about it, especially considering it can put the life of their baby at risk.”

A new survey found that just over two-thirds of people surveyed said they would like to know more about the disease, which can cause serious infections including pneumonia.

On average, one baby per week in the UK recovers from group B strep infection but develops life-changing disabilities in the process.

Activists say most high-income countries, including Germany, the United States, Canada, Spain and France, routinely offer prenatal testing to all pregnant women.

Jane Plumb, CEO of Group B Streptococcus Support, said: “While over 80% of pregnant women would like to be tested, the majority are not informed of the options. Group B Streptococcus Support is calling for Group B Streptococcus to become a notifiable disease and for robust national data to provide a full picture of the burden it causes, and we call on national policymakers to accept the new evidence when the GBS3 trial reports in 2025.”

“Group B Strep is more than just a statistic – it is a leading cause of serious infections in newborns and the lack of testing is a preventable tragedy.”